


dead love

by ont



Series: mockingbird [6]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Accidental Pregnancy, Anal Sex, Angst, Anxiety, Arguing, Belligerent Sexual Tension, Bittersweet Ending, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Depression, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Endgame Liam Payne/Louis Tomlinson, Erectile Dysfunction, Exes, Family Drama, Friends to Enemies, Friends to Lovers, Insecurity, Introspection, Jealousy, Louis-centric, Love Triangle, M/M, Mpreg, Non-Traditional Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Oral Sex, POV Zayn, Parent Louis, Parent Zayn, Past Relationship(s), Pining, Post-Zayn One Direction, Pregnancy, Pregnant Louis, Sexual Tension, Substance Abuse, Unplanned Pregnancy, Zayn-centric, break-up, otra
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 18:12:37
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 44,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8171071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ont/pseuds/ont
Summary: Louis, for his own part, seems disappointed and withdrawn. Zayn can tell that there’s still some part of him longing for Zayn to propose, or to ask to return to the band or the tour. They push and pull at each other silently, each resenting the other for not capitulating, their prides continually wounded.
Louis' pregnancy from Zayn's point of view.





	

HONG KONG, MARCH 18, 2015

On the rapidly dwindling list of things that make life bearable for Zayn these days, hot showers remain at the top.

They've got to be so hot that the entire bathroom steams up and his skin turns crimson. When he’s in there, he can breathe, he doesn’t think about the tour. When he’s out, the weight of it comes down on him again.

Louis helps somewhat, too. Only somewhat because Louis is on stage next to him every night, and so is inextricably associated with the mental crush of all of it. The smell of Louis’ sweat when they fuck is no different than the smell of Louis’ sweat when he performs.

Once out of the shower he finds Louis where he left him, naked on the bed. He’s lying on his stomach, tapping away at his phone. His arse has several pink crescent-shaped marks from Zayn’s nails.

Zayn climbs onto the bed and moves up over him, kissing up his neck and breathing in his ear. Louis laughs and slaps hardheartedly at him, ticklish, then rolls over and looks warmly into his eyes.

“Hey there,” he says. “Feel better?”

Zayn cups his face with one hand and strokes his scruffy jaw. “A little,” he lies. He had felt better, but only for five or so minutes.

Louis sits up and kisses him. Zayn knows Louis struggles with how sad he is. He also knows Louis thinks it can be fixed in some simple way, like Zayn’s sitting in a dark room of his own volition and just needs to turn on a light. He isn’t aware that Zayn lies awake at night and fantasizes in vivid color about blowing up his entire life, simply so that someone will realize how bad it’s gotten for him.

Zayn slides his tongue into Louis’ mouth anyway, and pushes his hand into his hair, lying him back against the bed. They’ve just had sex, but maybe he’s got one more in him. He shouldn't waste the high they've both still got.

Hong Kong twinkles gaily out the window. Zayn reaches for the remote on the bed and clicks for the curtains to shut, which they slowly do, swaying with their heaviness. He doesn’t need a reminder of how far from home he is.

Underneath him, Louis is fiddling with the string on Zayn’s joggers. Louis has become lately like some sort of divining rod for his depression. Every time it spikes, Louis is there, taking his cock out of his pants and sliding it into himself or his mouth. Sometimes it makes it hard for Zayn to think about how upside down everything is, when he’s consistently rewarded for his brooding with an eager pliant body and a corollary orgasm inside of that body.

“‘M not hard,” Zayn murmurs, kissing down Louis’ collarbone.

“You’ll get hard,” Louis assures him.

“You sure you want another go round? You won’t be sore tomorrow?”

“Well, just go easy on me, lad...”

Zayn likes Louis’ voice after he fucks him, how throaty it gets. They lie there for a few minutes as Louis jerks him back to hardness, the only sound their breathing and the _shick-shick_ of Louis’ hand up and down his cock. Zayn kisses him as he works, on the bow of his lips and the slant of his cheekbones. Louis nuzzles at him appreciatively.

Whenever he’s inside Louis he feels sedated, like Louis has got ketamine in between his thighs. He closes his eyes and rests his forehead against the bed over Louis’ shoulder, hitching Louis’ leg up with his hand so he can thrust into him deeper. Louis rakes his nails up Zayn’s lower back and moans as he’s moved up and down the bed by him.

One upside of Zayn’s mental fog is that he can fuck for longer. Ultimately, Louis comes with Zayn still inside him, clenching around his cock and groaning in his ear, clutching hard at Zayn’s hair. Zayn comes half a minute later, sighing with pleasure, pulling Louis’ warm body tightly to him and kissing him deeply on the lips. Louis’ semen is warm where it spilled over both of their stomachs.

“You feel so good,” Zayn breathes.

“So d’you,” Louis professes in a scratchy voice. “Feel so good in me…” He rolls his hips for emphasis.

Zayn clutches Louis to him like he’s the only thing tethering him to the earth. Louis clutches at him back, like he’s afraid Zayn is about to vanish.

He reaches down between them and pulls off the rubber, tying it and tossing it in the bin. He feels chilly, all of the sudden, and brings Louis under the covers with him. They lie face to face. Zayn slides his hand down the side of Louis and over the flare of his hip, then grabs him by the arse and pulls him closer. Louis laughs.

Zayn nuzzles into him.

“How long d’you think we can get away with this?” he says, as the anxiety begins to settle back in.

Louis looks up at him from underneath his fringe, and then rubs at his beard like he’s thinking.

“Long as we want,” he answers with a smile.

“Someone’ll figure it out,” Zayn whispers, rolling over onto his back.

His hotel suite is quiet for a moment, except for the hum of the fridge. Louis drops a kiss on his shoulder, then props himself up, hand on his chin and elbow against the bed. He shrugs.

“So what if they do?” he says.

Zayn doesn’t say that then he’ll be tied to Louis, in a way that would make it harder for him to blow everything up. Louis doesn’t know yet that he’s going to blow everything up.

 

JAKARTA, MARCH 25, 2015

For hours leading up to every concert, Zayn chants to himself _I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t do this anymore,_ and then he walks out and he does it. It’s more habit than anything. He leans so heavily into Louis these days, who gamely props him up, all smiles and banter.

He flirts with Louis extra hard tonight, because it keeps him grounded in the moment and focused on something that isn’t singing or breathing through anxiety attacks. He ducks away from the roar of the crowd and the dizzying lights and murmurs come-ons in Louis’ ear, clutching at bicep or the hem of his tank, gazing at Louis’ face as he grins in response and fixing his eyes on the flash of his teeth until it’s the only thing he sees.

He keeps clinging to Louis when they’re back at the hotel. They go up early, allowing everyone else to assume they’re sneaking off to smoke weed. It’s half-true, at least.

“I can’t believe how many lyrics I forgot tonight,” Zayn mumbles as they stagger through the hall, exhausted, hanging off of each other. “Christ…”

“It’s ‘cos we added all this fuckin’ Four,” Louis says. “We barely know anythin’ off Four.”

He launches into an imitation of Niall from earlier, when he had had to set down his guitar and pantomime the lyrics to Zayn. Zayn laughs blearily as he digs for his keycard in his pocket.

Harry walks by, then, and glances up from his phone.

“Hey,” he says, smiling at them. “What’re you two always giggling about lately?”

Zayn has a pang of guilt.

“Just stupid shit,” he says, smiling back at him. Louis nods to corroborate this.

“Alright,” Harry says affably. “Anyway, good show tonight...”

“Good show,” they call in unison after him, as he walks away.

Zayn is aroused and badly wants to touch Louis, to feel him all over and have the safe pressure of his warm body around his cock. His cock doesn’t seem to get the message. The harder they try to get it up, the more self-conscious he grows, until he’s limp in an almost stubborn way.

They lie in bed, their slim bodies naked and criss-crossed by the shadow pattern the full moon outside creates. Louis looks at his cock with a knit brow, like it’s a crossword puzzle or a spliff he’s having a hard time rolling up.

“Alright, want me to fuck you?” he finally says, and then spits his gum out into the trash.

Zayn is surprised. “Thought you weren’t much for that.”

“I mean, I fuck girls, don’t I?”

“Yeah, but they haven’t got cocks...”

Louis grins. “Got fingers, don't they? I don't mind, I just want to come. Maybe it’ll get you hard, too.”

Zayn smokes an entire joint while Louis finds the lube and gets himself hard, and then lies back against the bed, his head buzzing pleasantly.

Louis starts slicking up his cock. He seems to be looking around for something, then laughs.

“Just remembered I don’t need a rubber.”

“Right, yeah,” Zayn affirms, ashing the joint and then tossing the roach onto the bedside table.

“Must be nice,” Louis mutters, “not worrying about getting pregnant…”

“I don’t think about it much, honestly.”

Louis begins to finger him. Zayn grips the sheets and writhes against him, enjoying the feel of Louis in him but somewhat unnerved by it all the same. Giving himself over to this is difficult. Louis adds more fingers as he works him open, and Zayn lies his head back against the pillows, breathing heavily.

“You good?” Louis says throatily.

“I mean, kiss me before you put it in, mate...”

Louis smiles with a twinkle in his eye and leans in, running a hand through Zayn’s hair and sucking at his top lip. Zayn slides his hands up Louis’ neck and cups his jaw in his hands. His grip tightens and he gasps as Louis slides into him.

“God,” Zayn breathes. “Fuck… alright, go on. I’m good...”

He moves one hand from Louis’ face and relocates it to his thick arse, grabbing a solid handful that he can use to maneuver Louis and get him deeper. Louis laughs. He kisses and nuzzles Zayn some more as he begins to thrust.

Zayn moans and drops his head back, squeezing his eyes shut, hard. He experiences having his arse fucked as more of a slow burn of pleasure than Louis, for whom it seems to be an event of increasingly surging ecstasy, but sometimes a slow burn is exactly what he needs to shift the focus of his addled brain.

“You feel really good,” Louis remarks in a low, soft voice, and then groans as Zayn moves his hips so he’s tighter around Louis’ cock.

“You too,” Zayn murmurs, rubbing his thumb over Louis’ stubbly cheek.

“You hard?” Louis says. He’s sort of neurotically insecure like this when he’s on top. Zayn had forgotten.

“Do I feel hard?”

Louis strokes him. “A bit.”

He fucks him harder, which is what Zayn wants, because the more sensation he’s experiencing the less thoughts he’s able to have. Zayn moans more, and more loudly, and keeps saying Louis’ name without meaning to. He likes being able to let go like this.

He’s only ever trusted two blokes enough to fuck him, and Louis is the only one who’s fucked him more than once. They were very drunk the first time, though, and Zayn remembers it through a haze. This feels more immediate and real.

He likes Louis’ cock, and the gentle but insistent pistoning of his hips, and how high he is. He thinks he could lie here for hours if he could just be continually sedated like this.

He could tell him right now. He could open his mouth and say, _I’m leaving, I’m quitting as soon as the break comes. The only reason I’ve been able to drag myself through this leg is ‘cos I know I’m leaving, and ‘cos I’ve got you._

But Zayn’s sort of a coward, and if he did that, Louis would scream at him and cry and try to change his mind, and he doesn’t want any of that. He doesn’t want to see Louis sad and he doesn’t want to argue with him. He likes to think he’s doing him a favor, in a way. Isn’t Louis’ pride more important to him than anything? This way he hasn’t got to deal with the loss of Zayn while Zayn himself is still here, like a miserable ghost.

This way, when Zayn goes, Louis can mourn him in private, can kick things and weep and curse him all he wants. This way, Louis won’t convince him to stay, won’t look up at him with teary blue eyes and a devastated look on his pretty face and drag him back down into hell.

He’s a coward, but he loves Louis too much not to be one.

Louis comes in him with a soft groan, biting his lip. Zayn pulls him close, sliding his hand down over the flare of Louis’ hip and gripping his arse with both hands. Louis encircles his arms around Zayn’s lower back, and they lie there in the heat of each other.

“Good one,” Zayn says, and Louis chuckles. He leans over and gets his phone, then puts their smoking playlist on the Bluetooth speakers Zayn has resting on the table. _I Wanna Be Sedated_ starts playing.

“Perfect,” Zayn murmurs, pulling him close again.

 

***

 

BRADFORD, JUNE 29, 2015

Zayn lies in bed for six hours straight.

He’s been doing this quite a bit lately, so it isn’t out of the ordinary. No one tries to rouse him out of it, anymore. Safaa tried until late May, knocking at his door, calling to him, asking if he wants to go on walks, and then one day she gave up on him.

They were all so glad to have him back at first. Then it became clear that he’s damaged in some way; the odd hours he keeps, the constant pot smoking. He took Xanaxes like candy in the first few weeks he’d been home, hardly able to cope with the enormity of leaving the band and the ensuing silence from Harry, flagellating himself sickeningly by reading texts from Louis that were at first frantic and concerned and then grew angry and hateful as the weeks dragged on.

He had nearly stopped, nearly gotten himself down to .5 milligrams once a day two times a week.

Today after Louis left, he took a milligram and smoked four cigarettes in a row. He found that this did not stop him from replaying Louis howling _This is something you did to me_ again and again in his head, or reliving the look of anguish on his mother’s face when he said to her, _Mum, I'm so sorry, I fucked up. Louis is pregnant, and it's mine, and he's keeping it_. So he took more and laid down.

Zayn wishes he could sleep through his father coming home, and the next few weeks as well. He wishes for the first time since coming home that he had moved back out already.

His mum knows. She had cried in disappointment when he told her. He hears her moving around down there, now, and grows more nauseated and fearful with every step. Before long, everyone will know. The entire world will know. But first, his father, who will shake his head the way he did when Zayn arrived back on their doorstep.

“What exactly are you doing?” he’d said to Zayn that first night, and Zayn had laid out his five-year plan with great confidence. Now he’s fully deserving of that question. Now Yaser has every right to look at him in baffled dismay. Six hours ago, he was a multimillionaire twenty two-year-old with plenty of name recognition and the whole world at his feet. Now he’s just a twenty two-year-old mentally disordered stoner who’s impregnated his estranged ex-boyfriend.

Louis is walking around out there with their baby inside him. There’s never been a reality Zayn has found more difficult than this to face. Even when he left the band, he had managed to delude himself that as time went on there would be no hard feelings, that they had to see how he simply couldn’t do this anymore and would forgive him accordingly. Reality hadn’t gotten its cold fingers into him, yet.

Reality fucks him now. It holds him down and fucks him as if it’s getting revenge for being successfully evaded for so long.

Right after Louis left the house, Zayn went into a sort of immediate tailspin. He didn't even make it out of the foyer -- he sat on the bottom of the stairs chainsmoking, first doing the mental math to figure out that Louis must be, at the very least, twelve weeks pregnant. Then he’d Googled that number and sat numb, reading everything he could. His eyes grew hot and his nose began to tingle.

Their baby has kidneys. He slowly digested that information and then, abruptly, found he could read no more.

He went upstairs and went to bed. Trisha knocked on his door once, saying, “Zayn, darling,” and he had grunted so she knew he wasn’t dead but otherwise did not respond.

At 8:06, Yaser arrives home. Zayn’s heart jumps in his chest, but a disquieting calm settles over him at the same time. There’s nowhere to run or hide. It’s a relief, in a way, to be out of options.

He hears voices on the stairs.

“Just let me talk to him,” his father says patiently.

More muffled conversation takes place.

He must already know. She must have texted him, or something.

Zayn has a fleeting impulse to barricade his door and escape out the window, cashing out one of his bank accounts and vanishing to an island somewhere. It feels like he’s the one that’s pregnant, like he’s fifteen years old and without prospects and getting ready to belt out that Madonna song.

There are footsteps, and then a gentle knock at his door.

“Yeah,” he calls.

A pause occurs.

“I need to talk to you,” his father says.

“Okay,” Zayn says.

Yaser jiggles the knob. “Uh. You locked this?”

“Fuck,” Zayn mutters. “One sec.”

He rolls off his bed, stumbling over discarded pairs of jeans in the dark.

The doorknob feels heavy in his head. After a moment of hesitation he tugs it, and looks up at Yaser, who is relatively expressionless.

“Let’s have a drink,” he says. “And talk.”

“I don’t need a drink, Dad.”

“Trust me, you do.”

Zayn wants to cry he’s ten and he just skinned his knee. He nods and follows his father downstairs. Everyone else has made themselves scarce. He wonders if his sisters know yet.

His dad settles in a dark armchair in the sitting room, across from him, where he perches on the couch in tense discomfort. It's an unusually cool night for late June, and Zayn shivers under the blast of the air conditioning.

“Lot warmer up there on the top floor,” Yaser comments.

“Right,” Zayn mutters.

Yaser bounces his leg and sips his drink. Zayn doesn't touch his, simply clutching it in his clammy  palm as if it’s a prop, like he's a bad stage actor.

“I remember talking to you about rubbers,” Yaser says. There's an almost wistful note to his voice. “Safe sex...”

Zayn shrinks from him in shame. “I know.”

“Do you use them?”

“I do,” he says.

“But not with Louis?”

“Rubbers break...”

“Is that what happened?” his father says, nodding at him encouragingly, as if he wants this to be the case.

Zayn is unable to lie, even if he thought he'd get away with it. “No,” he says, biting his lip. His heart seems to clutch and unclutch stickily in his chest. It doesn't feel like it's beating right. He wonders if he could have palpitations just from sitting here. “We didn't use one, sometimes.”

“Sometimes,” his father repeats with disappointment. “But you knew he could get pregnant.”

“Yeah,” Zayn says quietly, looking away and then down at his hands.

“You use them with Perrie?”

“Used. Yeah.”

“And the others?”

Zayn's face burns at this acknowledgment of his philandering. “Yeah...”

“And not Louis.”

“I felt safe with him,” Zayn whispers. “I trusted him. He _got_ me...”

“Does trusting him prevent your sperm from going in him? Help me understand.”

Zayn says nothing. There's nothing to understand.

“You're twenty-two. You've put a child in someone. You’re going to be a father, now, for the rest of your life, with someone you don't even get along with anymore.”

Zayn again has the urge to cry like a little boy, to throw a tantrum, to beat his fists on the ground and wail that it isn't fair. “I know!” he says hotly.

“Your mother said he isn't leaving the tour.”

“No.”

“Have you thought about going and joining back?”

“Why,” Zayn says, with a sick laugh. “Go and _grovel_ at them, at him, delay me own career, just so I can -- I asked him to stay here, I told him I'd take care of him --”

“Did you ask him to marry you?”

“Neither of us wants that!”

“If you want him to abandon his obligations,” Yaser says, “abandon his career, disappoint his fans --”

Zayn hears criticism of himself nested inside of this.

“-- you'd have to offer him better than empty promises.”

“This isn't fucking nineteen fifty-seven. We aren't in secondary.”

“Right,” his father says amiably. “And yet there are ways of handling situations like this that stand the test of time.”

“Oh, God,” Zayn moans, putting his face in his hands. His nausea is worse, and the room has begun to spin. “Oh, God, Dad, you can’t be askin’ that of me, can you? You'll get a shotgun and point it at us while we get married in the backyard, like? I'm only twenty-two!”

“Were you not twenty-two when you had unprotected sex with someone who could get pregnant?” Yaser exclaims, sounding near to disbelief.

They grow quiet. The fireplace behind them crackles loudly as another log sinks and is devoured.

“What do I do?” Zayn's mouth is dry. He flicks his tongue against his lips and swallows. “What the fuck do I do?”

“Pray,” Yaser says. “Talk to Allah. Talk to yourself. Think about what you really want. And realize you're going to be a father very, very soon. Six months is _nothing_.”

“Okay,” Zayn says numbly.

“Does Perrie know about this? Call her and tell her before it breaks in the news. You owe her that.”

Zayn nods. His head moves like he's a marionette.

“I ought to move out,” he mutters.

“I agree,” his father says. “You need to put a nursery in that house of yours, first off.”

He comes over to Zayn and motions for him to get up, then embraces him hard and squeezes him close.

“I'm sorry,” Yaser says. “These things happen. Welcome to adulthood.”

“I was gonna be free,” Zayn says softly, his body rigid with grief. “I was shut of it all, I was out, I was free --”

“Responsibilities are a blessing,” Yaser says. “They give you direction and purpose. Being an average, aimless twenty two-year-old is not as fun as it sounds. Clearly, your path is marked out for more than that. No matter how you try to run from it.”

“I can't raise a baby,” Zayn whispers.

“No one’s making you. Luckily, you aren't the one who's pregnant.”

“But I can't be a _dad_...”

His father claps him on the back, then takes him by the shoulders and studies his face. “You can, and you will.”

 

BRADFORD, JUNE 30, 2016

Zayn wakes the next morning at the crack of dawn, just as the sun is rising. He lights a bowl and smokes it without leaving his bed or even sitting upright.

He wants to text Louis. He wants some confirmation that all of this is really happening, because yesterday already seems to him like a terrible fever dream. When he opens the iMessage between them, though, Louis’ texts over the last two months stare him down. Seventeen little blue indictments of him that grow harsher and harsher until they abruptly stop May 5.

In this cold new post-baby news world, bile physically rises in his throat every time he thinks about their Twitter fight. It's a poisonous cycle of guilt, and then righteous indignation. He didn't know! He’s a monster for it, but how could he have known? _He didn't know!_

Zayn doesn't text Louis. Ultimately, he lies there with a mouth acrid from sleep and weed until it’s late enough in the morning that it would be reasonable to call Perrie. Only once it is does he remember she's on a world tour. Everyone's on a world tour but him. He can't remember what time zone she’s in right now.

He rings her anyway, hoping to get her voicemail. He isn't that lucky.

“What do you want?” she says when she answers.

Zayn breathes with some difficulty. “I just need to tell you summat…”

“Go on,” Perrie says coolly.

“This is really hard, um…”

He rummages in his bed for a lighter so he can hit the last remnants in the bowl, but comes up with nothing.

“Haven't got all day, Zayn, I'm busy.”

“I was sleeping with Louis,” he says. His voice sounds idiotic in his own ears. “From like, January. I, um -- he's --”

“Pregnant? I know.”

Zayn's heart clenches. “Oh, alright.”

“He told me,” she says. “That you've got him up the spout. Called me yesterday and apologized over and over. Nearly cried.”

“Okay, I just wanted you to know.”

“Did you want to apologize, as well?”

Her voice is like concrete. Zayn inhales.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“You are truly somethin’ else, you know that? You had better kiss the ground it was him you got pregnant and not some airhead cocktail waitress, or a fan.”

“Don't tell me what to do,” he says weakly, wanting desperately for this conversation to end.

“He's terrified,” Perrie says. Her voice is powerfully quiet; she's every bit the wounded alpha and he can't help but cede ground to her. “Out of his mind with fear.”

“I asked him to come home --”

“You and I both know he won't do that.”

Prickly silence stretches out.

“Maybe now you'll rethink all your protests about using rubbers,” Perrie snaps, and then mocks him. “ _Aww, Pezza, it just don't_ feel _as good_ \--”

“Wait, I'm sorry,” he demands in a harsh voice, “you always said no to me on that, didn't you? And I sucked it up an’ wore ‘em? What d’you think, like -- Louis wasn't _there_ when we fucked? That ‘e didn't open up ‘is legs for me and say go on, then, give it to us raw? Am I missin’ something, here?”

“Jesus _Christ_ , what a shit you are,” she exclaims bitterly. “D’you know how humiliating this entire thing is for me? Have you got to rub it in my face?”

“Have you got to rub ‘im being pregnant in _mine_?”

She hangs up on him.

Zayn tosses the phone down and lies back against the pillows.

It must have been the most recent time they had sex, that this had happened. Zayn had been so depressed and limp-dicked of late that they hadn't had actual intercourse in the two weeks beforehand. Zayn imagines if he was pregnant from any other time, he'd be showing already.

The thought of Louis beginning to show, of everyone in the world knowing what he's done, curdles his blood with terror.

They had been on the bus to the airport, he remembers. He had already decided he was leaving the band but hadn't told a single breathing soul. He was crushed under the weight of that, struggling to breathe properly -- but Louis had been there, sweet cheeky Louis bearing a smile and two grams of weed.

He still remembers how good Louis felt that day, how tight he was and nice his moans and sighs had been. They were stoned, and that always made it even better between them. Zayn had fucked him lazily, spread across the couch together, feeling Louis’ nails rake up his back, thinking that this might be the last time so he had better enjoy it.

As frustrated and upset as he is with him, he misses Louis dearly. He misses Louis making him laugh, he misses being inside him and touching him. He can't believe the consequences for that small amount of pleasure, that brief break from painful reality, are this all-encompassing. He'll pay charges on those ten minutes for the rest of his life. He pulled out, he pulled out, but it doesn't seem to have mattered.

Such a massive rift has already opened up in the soft earth between them; Zayn hadn't allowed himself to acknowledge the vast scope of it until Louis had come into his home and forced him to see.

He’s done the one thing that Zayn couldn't guard against when distancing himself from the band. He’s tied himself and Zayn together for the rest of their lives, he's forced their relationship into the open, he's forced a public conversation that will never look good for either of them no matter what they do. They'll slag off Louis as the slutty and irresponsible homewrecker; they'll frame Zayn as the disinterested deadbeat, the douchebag cheater who kissed off and left the worst possible parting gift on his way out.

Louis will do his best to control this narrative, Zayn knows already. Louis will distance himself from the bad-boy partying antics that have recently characterized the both of them. He'll once again take advantage of his more enduring image as the lutrine, sweet-voiced omega of the band, and of Zayn’s new one as the mean traitor. Once he starts showing he’ll smile and swan around onstage, glowing like he’s Kate Middleton, while paps will snap photos of Zayn walking out of clubs, sweaty and dark and smoking, and the fans will wonder what the fuck is going on -- _why aren't you with your band, why aren't you with your boy and your baby?_

He wants to scream at their fans that he was losing it, he was careening, that he had white-knuckled it for an entire year until he couldn't take it anymore and then broken his head above water and breathed for the first time on April twentieth. Zayn wants them to know that he had started seeing things in the corner of his eyes, that he had stopped sleeping, that weed was no longer even enough to sedate him.

He wants them to know that Louis had texted him calling him pathetic a day before he’d said _bitchy comments_ , that he'd been doing coke for hours leading up to tweeting that and Shahid had sat beside him the entire time and egged him on. He wants them to know that he fired Shahid and told him to rot in hell shortly after, when he found his phone lying out unlocked in the studio and a text to another producer, saying, _can tell im going to make $$$$$$$ from peeling prettyboy off from these one direction cunts. i almost feel bad about it lol its too easy. his little twat fans all have such a horn on, theyre like walking ATM machines_

Zayn still hadn't texted Louis to apologize, even after that. He was too prideful, and too afraid still that Louis would somehow suck him back to the band.

 

*

 

A messenger delivers NDAs around noon. Zayn gets the door before anyone else can and signs them quickly, only skimming them.

“Are there supposed to be more of these?” he mutters, looking under the three he's signed and finding only blank clipboard.

The messenger shakes his head. “Dunno. This is what they gave me. They'll be faxed to your lawyers once we scan ‘em.”

“Alright,” Zayn says.

The bloke signs off on the witness portion of the documents and then bounces away down the front steps, toward the road. Zayn rummages in his pockets for a cigarette and a lighter and begins to smoke, not even closing the front door.

Doniya wanders up behind him and clears her throat. “Mum said you're moving out soon.”

He blows out smoke. “I've sort of got to…”

She studies him with curiosity and concern. “Are you moving in with Louis when the tour ends?”

“Nah,” Zayn says, glancing down. “Don’t think so.”

“He’s going to be pretty far along by then.”

“I know.”

They don't speak for a moment.

“Are you going to actually talk this out with any of us, or just keep stonewalling?” she says.

“The second one.”

“Zayn…” His sister sighs. “A baby is _such_ a big deal…”

“Please drop it,” he begs in a soft voice. “Please.”

Zayn brings the cigarette to his lips and drags off it, hard, forcing nicotine into himself. Doniya stares at him.

“What's happened to you?” she says. “Why are you like this? Where'd you go?”

He tosses the butt of his cigarette down and pushes past her, disappearing into the house.

 

*

 

Zayn gives in and calls Liam a few hours later, because he can't breathe. He's lying out in the garden, hiding from everyone while his throat and chest constrict and constrict until he fumbles for his phone in a panic.

Liam doesn't pick up at first, sending Zayn into a spiral of anxiety, but he calls back in a few minutes.

“Sorry, mate, I was outside with the dog,” Liam says cheerily. “What's up?”

Zayn can't speak for a few moments. His throat feels like it's got a frog in. When he finally does, something he didn't mean to say comes out.

“How long have you known for?”

Liam clears his throat awkwardly. “Um,” he says. “Um… for a bit, now.”

“How long?”

“Zayn,” Liam says, pained.

“I just wanna know.”

He's trembling even though it isn't cold out.

“He told me right after he found out.”

Liam’s voice is strained but very even. He sounds like he's playing the diplomat so hard it's hurting him. Zayn removes the phone from his ear and exhales.

He had suspected, when he and Liam talked over the last month, that Louis had told him about their relationship. At some point Liam's demeanor toward him changed; he's grown more clipped and less forthcoming with information about Louis’ well-being, which Zayn always asked for even though he didn't yet know about the baby.

Zayn has wondered a few times, uncharitably, if Liam’s got a bit of a thing for Louis. He knows he did years ago, when they were kids, but he'd always thought Liam would never betray the rules enough to fuck anyone in the band. 

He'd likely never say anything to Zayn, if he is entertaining some petty jealousy. The strength of their bond lies in how unfailingly kind to each other they are. When Zayn had first left him a weepy voicemail in early May, outlining everything he's thought and felt since deciding to leave, Liam had texted him, _I understand. Sorry you didnt feel like you could tell us this. Love you mate xx._ Zayn is very sweet to Liam these days, almost cosseting of him, out of gratefulness for his forgiving nature. No one else in the band has forgiven him. Harry certainly hasn't done so, something he tries to push from his mind. Every text Zayn sent him was read receipted and ignored.

“Louis told you first?” Zayn says. “Before anybody?”

“He had to tell _somebody_. He was upset.”

“How upset?”

“Devastated.”

“Great,” Zayn murmurs.

“You can understand why.”

“Why’s he keeping it, if he's so _devastated_?”

“He wants it,” Liam says, with soft reverence for Louis in his voice. Zayn's suspicion throbs again.

“How's he been feelin’?”

“What, the last few days or the last month?”

“Month. I mean, now that you know I know, so you don't have to pretend to me like he's fine,” Zayn says bitterly.

Liam inhales. “I dunno. Really run down and tired. Still partying a little, even though he can't drink… Been sick a lot. He's had to go backstage to be sick a few times, during shows... Sad, depressed. He's been depressed ever since you left, though.”

“I don't need to hear that.”

“Sorry.”

“Ain't like I don't miss him,” Zayn says, his voice thick. He trembles again, with this sort of frenetic energy his body keeps creating and not giving him a way to release. Not even masturbating helps. He gets up and begins to pace. “That isn't it at all. Things are so fucked up with us.”

“I know,” Liam says.

“Do you?” Zayn snaps, and then regrets it instantly. “Sorry.”

“It's okay to freak out,” Liam says gently. “You're having a baby, it's scary.”

“I'm already in a bad place, you know I am,” Zayn says, becoming choked up. “I'd just seen some daylight, and now...”

“It's a good thing,” Liam says. “A baby. Being a dad.”

“I can’t raise a _baby_! Jesus fuckin’ Christ! I can't even fuckin’ function lately without bein’ stoned, Liam!”

“Louis will do the hard bits,” Liam says. The more strained his voice becomes, the more Zayn wants to scream at him. “Louis is doing all of the hard shit...”

“I know he is,” Zayn hollers desperately. “No one asked him to! I didn't!”

“It's his body, it's his decision!”

“I _know_!”

Neither of them say anything.

“It goes public tomorrow,” Zayn says.

“I know, Louis said.”

“Is he gonna be alright?”

“I was going to check on him during the day,” Liam says, and then hesitates. “Unless you'd like to.”

“Nah, he won't want to hear from me,” Zayn mutters. “I texted ‘im last night that I told me dad and he saw it and never responded.”

“What'd your dad say?”

“Told me I'm a stupid fuckup and I ought to marry him.”

“Sorry.”

“He's probably right,” Zayn says. “That's what you do, innit, when you do this to someone?”

His voice sounds terribly loud and warped to him in the quiet, early evening dark of the garden. An upstairs window is open. He wonders if his family can hear him shouting into his phone like a maniac.

“Louis doesn't need your money,” Liam says softly. “He doesn't need you to move in with him, he can have night nannies… isn't that why people get married when they have an accident? To share money, and responsibility?”

Zayn gets hot in his face and chest. “So my kid’ll just never have a normal family. Not even for a minute.”

“Normal families are overrated. You can be happier without one.”

“I can't talk about this,” Zayn mutters. “Sorry. I just can't. It ain't even real to me yet. I can't believe this is happenin’.”

“Neither can he.”

“I don't need that from you, Liam.”

“I'm in the middle,” Liam points out. “You've put me in the middle.”

“No, _he_ has.”

“Louis is trying to do the best he can with a bad situation.”

“He should have told me,” Zayn bursts out. “Not _you_. Me!”

“He didn't know if he was gonna keep it, Zayn!”

“He still should've told me!”

“Why would he tell you he aborted your baby?” Liam shouts, and he's clearly losing his cool, now. “To hurt you? To hurt himself all over again? Why?”

“You're like his _mouthpiece_ ,” Zayn says in disbelief. “What the fuck? The four of you are so _fuckin’_ weird now, I swear! Circlin’ the wagons on me all the fuckin’ time! Why can't ‘e say this shit to me ‘imself, huh?”

“'Cos he's so angry at you for leaving that he can hardly see straight! Do you realize what you did,” Liam says. He's pleading, and Zayn is sickened by it. “You left him, you abandoned him, the worst thing you could do to Louis -- you ignored him and then he found out he was pregnant and dumped and alone and you rejected him in public, in front of everyone --”

“STOP,” Zayn roars. “ _I don't need this from you!_ ”

“I don't need _you_ to keep reaching back from beyond the grave and fucking with a band I'm trying to keep together! Have some respect for me, Zayn, and what I'm trying to do here!”

Zayn's head is spinning. He sits down again, and then lies back against the grass and becomes very still.

“I'm sorry.” Liam immediately forces this into the silence. He sounds deeply chagrined. “I'm so sorry, I know this isn't easy for you. I just want everyone to be happy.”

“It ain't always that easy,” Zayn says hoarsely. “Sometimes someone's got to suffer. Sometimes only one person can get what they want.”

Liam doesn't seem to have any response to this.

“I feel sick,” Zayn says, and feels sicker as he says it. “I reckon I'm gonna be sick.”

“Zayn,” Liam says, pained.

“Let's leave it,” Zayn says. “Lemme know how Louis is tomorrow.”

He hesitates.

“Is the baby, like, healthy? All good, all there?”

“Oh, yeah, yeah,” Liam assures him. “Very healthy. Louis would have said, if not.”

“Alright. I worry, is all.”

“I know.”

Zayn lies there, aching. “I don't want to fight with you,” he says.

“I'm sorry,” Liam says, in that earnest way of his. “I am, I shouldn't have yelled. I just feel like I'm keeping everything together right now. It's a lot.”

“You do keep everythin’ together, that's why we love you.”

“Thanks,” Liam says bashfully.

“I am sort of, like… don't take this the wrong way, but I'm surprised you…” Zayn trails off and tries to organize his thoughts. It's difficult, because he's sleep-deprived and somewhat high. “I'm surprised you were so good at talking to me when you knew Louis was pregnant, pretendin’ like there was nothing wrong.”

Liam pauses.

“It isn't my business,” he finally says.

“Right, I just want to trust you, mate.”

“Of course you can trust me.”

Something gnaws at Zayn. He wonders again if Liam’s still got a little crush on Louis, if that's what he's picking up on, here. He wonders if Liam is really capable of being that stupid. 

“Alright,” he says. There's no other way to respond to that.

They chat a little more about less serious things and then hang up. Zayn retrieves a half-smoked joint from his pocket and goes to lie in the hammock as he finishes it. He thinks about his relationship with Louis, because he's maudlin and it's on his mind.

He thinks about fucking him, mostly, and all the places they did it; the back of bus one, a balcony, the shower, a counter, a dressing room, bed, the floor. Louis is like a wind-up toy; all you had to do was look at him sideways and off came the trousers. He'd get hard in a stiff wind.

Once they'd smoked so much extremely good weed they couldn't get up off the hotel floor, so they fucked right there, and Louis was so high he went into paroxysms of ecstasy he could barely handle. He had pressed his hands to his eyes, mewling and yelping with the pleasure of Zayn’s cock. He'd come more than Zayn had ever seen a bloke come and lay there trembling and grinning afterward.

Louis was great in that had essentially no objections to anything, except he was usually too lazy to be on top and he refused to let Zayn ever come in his hair. And when they didn’t have a rubber, Zayn usually pulled out and came on his stomach, thighs, back or arse. They'd never had a problem with pulling out, before; Zayn still can't figure out how it went wrong on the bus.

He supposes he did linger inside Louis a moment or two too long. It's just he had known it would probably be the last time. He hadn't wanted it to end. He'd wrapped his hand around the back of Louis’ neck, listening intently to his sweet moans and soft sighs and stroked his hair, trying to savor every piece of him.

Part of him wants to go to Louis, now, to hold him and reassure him like he had when Louis had broken down yesterday. He knows Louis won't want him, though. This news breaking is something Louis will want to go alone; it'll humiliate him, and he always wants to be alone when he's humiliated. It's one of the few times he does.

They won't get married no matter what Yaser says. Both of them are too prideful. They’d be too convinced the other didn't want it enough, they both know too well it would be a bad bet in the long term.

Zayn lets himself imagine what that would be like. If they would just do a quickie at the courthouse or if someone (probably one of their sisters or mothers) would insist it be an actual wedding. He pictures a terrible awkward affair with a miserable and obviously pregnant Louis, the two of them barely touching and grim-faced like they're at a funeral, his mum crying for all the wrong reasons.

 

BRADFORD, JULY 1, 2015

The news breaks at eight the next morning, right when teenage girls are on their phones before school, sitting on school buses and in homerooms and kitchens and swim practices all around the world, grouped together so the news will spread faster amongst them and clicks will rise as they each go to confirm.

 

_The biggest boyband in the world is about to get a little bigger! TMZ can exclusively reveal that One Direction star Louis Tomlinson is PREGNANT._

_Reps for the band reluctantly confirmed this... AFTER we got ahold of official documents proving the singer had consulted with a ob-gyn while the pop group was touring in Wales late last month. ( Click to view)_

_“We can confirm Louis is several months pregnant,” a rep said in a statement. “He has no plans at this time to depart One Direction or their On The Road Again tour, although the tour schedule will be adjusted to suit his needs. He is under a doctor’s supervision. An announcement about dropped tour dates will be forthcoming, and tickets will be refunded. He thanks the fans for their patience and understanding, and asks that he be given privacy in this delicate time.”_

_So who’s the baby daddy or mama??? For now, it looks like that little detail is being kept under wraps. We await the inevitable Twitter speculation that it’s bandmate Harry Styles who did the deed, but an insider we spoke to shot down that idea._

_“It isn’t anyone who’s in the band,” said the insider. “The other boys were really shocked to find out, and concerned about how it’s going to affect the tour and upcoming album. They’re a little disappointed that this has happened.”_

_Louis is known for being the funny bad-boy leader of the band, although not one of its musical stand-outs. He dumped long-time alpha girlfriend, Eleanor Calder, in January of this year, so it’s unlikely the kid is hers._

_This announcement comes during a storm of shockers for the band, including former member Zayn Malik’s departure in April to launch his solo career, his very public Twitter spat with Louis, and an announcement only a few days ago that the band would go on a ‘hiatus’ of undetermined length after their current tour wraps up._

_Our thoughts are with One Direction fans during this difficult time, who at the very least must be thinking,_ What the f**k is going on with this band?

 

Doniya reads this aloud over breakfast, even after Zayn begs her to stop and puts his head down on the table with his hands over his ears to block it out.

“Poor Louis,” Trisha comments.

“‘Several months’?” his sister says. “How long is that, exactly?”

Silence falls, and Zayn realizes they’re waiting for him to provide an answer.

“E’s like, three months,” he mutters, then loudly pushes his chair back and walks away.

He goes up to his room and tries to lose himself in working on music. He hasn’t done that in a few days, now -- it’s hard for him to write sexy R&B bangers when all he can think about is how his life as a carefree twenty-two year old are over.

One of his legal team, Mark Brier, rings his work phone at nine-thirty.

“Zayn, good afternoon, how are you?” Mark doesn’t give him the time to respond to this. “This is odd, but I’ve noticed something’s a bit amiss with your NDAs. Have you got a minute?”

“I do,” Zayn says, spinning his chair away from his computer and adjusting his mobile against his ear.

“Right, well, it looks like they’ve only had you sign over the documents that would prevent you from revealing the pregnancy before TMZ did. Not the ones that prevent you from revealing your paternity before their tour ends.”

Zayn is sober and sluggish-minded. “Okay,” he says slowly. “So -- sorry, what’s that mean?”

“That means,” Mark says, “I believe they’ve overlooked it. Now, if they realize their mistake and send those documents over, you will have to sign them. It would be very bad strategy to refuse to, because we’ve got to protect your upcoming album and we don’t need to be on their bad side.”

“Well, yeah.”

“But if they don’t, um. We were just going to go ahead and choose to not make them aware of their error. We think that puts you in better stead vis-a-vis this whole baby situation. Let me know if you object to this in any way.”

“How does it put me in better stead?”

“From now until November first, you can choose to reveal, at any time, that you are the father of this baby, with no legal repercussions whatsoever.”

“Why would I do that?” Zayn mutters.

“I’m looking at an email here that says Louis is due around January fifteenth. So he’ll be pretty far along by the time the tour wraps up?”

“I guess.” Zayn does the math fast in his head. “Seven months?”

“Right. Look, Zayn, things will happen over the course of the next few months, especially since you’ll be apart from each other. Sometimes being a putative father can get ugly. Especially with public figures...”

“I reckon it’ll be fine,” Zayn says. He doesn’t like thinking about this very much. “I can’t imagine Louis trying to screw me out of rights.”

“Are you two getting along right now? Someone had described you to me as estranged.”

“I guess estranged might be a good word,” Zayn says. There’s a sucking pit of dread in the center of his chest. He wants to get off this phone call. “I mean, I hope that’ll change, like. For the…” he sighs. “The baby.”

 _The baby_ still feels ridiculous in his mouth, like he’s talking about someone else’s life, some other duffer with an ex who's expecting.

“Let’s just go ahead and keep this paperwork our little secret, then, shall we?”

“I mean, whatever you lot think is best.”

“Excellent,” Mark says, in that slimy way of solicitors. “We’ll be in touch.”

 

*

 

His mum comes to him around noon.

“I called Jay,” she says, sounding upset. “She isn’t answering the phone to me.”

“Sorry, mum,” Zayn says, rubbing his eyes. He’s been staring at Avid for hours, now. He keeps his den-like room so dark lately that Trisha opening the door and letting the hallway light in makes it feel as if it’s suddenly a different time of day.

“You should drive into London and go talk to him,” she says. “Today must be very hard for him.”

“He don’t want to see me.”

“How do you know?”

“I know Louis.”

“You ought to try.”

“Maybe I don’t want to see him!” Zayn shouts. “Have you thought about that? Maybe I’m upset and angry, too!”

 _“_ Suck it up! You aren’t the one who’s pregnant!”

“Aye, but in six months we’ll both have a baby, won’t we? So what’s it fuckin’ matter?”

“It _matters!_ And you aren’t hurting today, he’s the one who’s hurting!”

“Get out, mum, please,” Zayn begs her, and he comes to the door and begins to push it shut. “Please, please, I’m beggin’.”

She stares at him, waspish. 

“You’re going to lose him,” she warns. “If you don’t make more of an effort. If you don’t stop hiding behind your fear, if you don’t just go ahead and come to terms with this baby, you’re going to push him away and he’ll push you away in turn.”

“Mum! _Please!”_

"You've made a grandmother out of me at my age, and I can't even give you a little bit of advice? Zayn!"

 _"Please_ ," Zayn repeats, his voice low.

Trisha shakes her head and silently departs. Zayn closes the door, and presses his forehead to it.

 

*

 

He sleeps for a few hours. His dreams are jumbled and dark and panicky. He has one where he's tracking Louis through the woods, only seeing glimpses of him through the trees and out of the corners of his eyes. He somehow knows that Louis is in labor, which fills him with terror.

Finally he finds Louis lying in a clearing, crying out for him; he comes close and leans down. Louis grins, reaches out with both hands and snaps his neck.

Zayn wakes, sweating, his heart pounding. He glances at his left bedside table, where a baggie of Xanax sits.

He takes one, swallowing it dry.

 

*

 

Yaser texts him a screenshot of The Sun’s website. They've listed who they think are Louis’ most likely potential baby daddies. Zayn is on there, with an accompanying photo of them getting handsy at a February concert and smiling at each other.

The caption talks about his departure, and their public falling out. The Sun gives him a 1 in 10 chance of being the dad. _Wouldn’t that be awkward, if he was?_ it says.

 

*

 

In a desperate and impulsive moment he calls Harry, knowing Harry will never pick up, knowing he may delete the voicemail without listening to it, but knowing all the same that he’s got to try to do one thing right, today.

“Hey,” Zayn says into his voicemail. “I know you don’t wanna talk to me.” He coughs into his sleeve; his throat is dry. “I know you hate me for leavin’... and I know you probably hate me even more for this baby thing... Haz, I never meant for any of this to happen. I was losin’ my mind and just grabbing onto whatever I could to keep me sane. I didn’t mean to have a kid with someone else. I didn’t mean for it to be Louis. I still think about you. I can’t believe you want to just give up on me like this. If you’ve ever cared for me a moment in your life, give us a ring back so I can try and explain --”

His message is too long; the voicemail box cuts him off. He doesn’t call back.

 

*

 

Later in the afternoon, Liam texts him.

 _Ive got louis at my place in surrey_ , he says.

Zayn frowns at his phone. His heart quickens for reasons he can't quite figure.

_Why???_

Liam takes a while to respond. Zayn is in the kitchen, having figured he ought to try and have something to eat, and he pushes aside his plate now, suddenly lacking in appetite.

_I was worried about him and so i came to take him for a drive and talk and paps were swarmed on his place_

_talk about what??????_ Zayn punches the question mark key like he's trying to break his screen.

 _Just whats going on toda_ y, Liam says. _Zayn were good mates idk what to tell you. he needs someone right now_

_Does he need me?_

_I asked and he said he didn't think he could be around you right now_ , Liam says.

Zayn calls Liam, then, because this is a ridiculous talk to have over text. He gets up and walks out onto the patio, lighting yet another fag. This morning he spent a full minute spitting up a disgusting wad of phlegm that had traveled up his throat from all of his recent smoking.

“So he can't be around me, but he can be around anyone else in the fuckin’ world?” Zayn says, without a hello.

“It isn't anyone else in the world, Zayn, it's me, and he's been pretty prickly with me as it is,” Liam says evenly.

“Oh, I'm so sorry,” Zayn snaps.

Liam is quiet.

“Tell me it's at all reasonable for him to refuse to talk to the father of this baby.”

“Yeah, I’d say it is, actually!” Liam retorts, his voice rising. Zayn can hear him becoming his worst self; bossy, controlling, entitled and willfully ignorant. He clenches his jaw.

“So this is what I'm dealing with,” he says. “I'm gonna talk to him _through_ you for the next six months? What, Liam, you going to get a fuckin’ megaphone and yell me updates out the fuckin’ hospital window when he gives birth?”

“No, no no no, mate.”

“It’s like you’ve both decided that if I ain’t comin’ back to the band, I’m fuckin’ persona non grata --”

“Nooo, no one would ask that of you!”

“ _Obviously_ that’s what Louis wants, and he did ask for it! And what does he think, I’ll literally just say, oops, never mind, fuckin’ toss my solo career, my new image and months of paperwork down the drain and come be with you four, makin’ music I barely like, when three of you fuckin’ _hate_ me, now --”

Liam sighs. “No, of course you wouldn't! That would be bloody stupid! We don't _want_ that, we’re getting on fine without you.”

“Thanks.”

“No, mate, that isn't a crack, it's the truth. I would hope it would make you feel better, actually. It's like no one can win, we’re either --”

“When do I get to fuckin’ win, huh?”

“Let me talk!” Liam shouts. “We’re either punishing you or guilting you, you know? I'm not doing either! Not about the band! I just can't believe --”

“Will you listen to me for a fuckin’ second?”

“Alright, yeah. I’m listening.”

“Everythin’ is about the band,” Zayn snaps. “The reason Louis won’t talk to me is about the band. The reason I’m not there right now talking to him about this in person, deciding if we should really have this baby, deciding if we ought to get married, is this stupid fuckin’ prison of a band and me decidin’ to leave it. Look, he’s made his decision. He don’t want to give up on this stupid tour, admit the smartest thing to do would be to come home, fuckin’ _fine._ ”

He’s shaking with anger and grief as he says this. He isn’t sure if he really means it, but it feels right to say, in the moment. He wants to say these things to Louis, to Harry, but he can’t, so he screams them at Liam instead.

“Louis is... you could count yourself extremely lucky if he'd even have you,” Liam says stiffly. “And I know you’ve still got some sort of feelings for him, otherwise you wouldn't have been trying to check up on him behind his back this past month.”

“Of course I’ve got feelings for ‘im,” Zayn mutters. “That’s the only reason I didn’t answer ‘is fucking texts.”

There’s some commotion over the phone, and Zayn hears Liam say, “Were you eavesdropping?”

He’s struck by fear that Louis heard the last thing Liam said. He doesn’t want Louis to hear Zayn has feelings for him, when he can barely work out what those feelings are. His affection for Louis is soaked in oily bile, weighed down by self-righteous anger and made brittle by bitterness.

Liam must have muted the phone on his end, because Zayn suddenly hears nothing.

“Is Louis there?” he says.

There’s a pause.

“Yeah, he's here,” Liam says, with some apprehension. “Did you have something to say to him?”

A hundred things. A thousand.

“No,” Zayn mutters. “Not exactly ideal to have you there, is it?”

Liam sighs. “Right, no, I know...”

“So, no. I’ve got to go, anyway.”

“Fine. Later, then. I'll talk to you.”

Liam has changed, Zayn realizes as he hangs up the phone. Liam has developed the toxic bullheadedness of an alpha who has found someone in need of protection. His instincts have kicked in, he’s responding to the needy, desperate omega in front of him and nothing else.

Zayn feels profoundly alone.

 

LONDON, JULY 9, 2015

Zayn moves into his London house on the fifth. Since he purchased it, it’s been serving as a sort of storage space for things he accumulated on breaks between tours. When he walked into the front hall, the first thing he saw was a grand piano, inexplicably placed near the staircase with a stack of books balanced precariously on top of it.

His mother apologized to him before he left.

“I just don't want this baby to have parents who can't get along,” she said, smoothing his jacket down over his shoulders. “And I don't want you to alienate Louis any more than you have. I'm afraid -- you should have seen his face when he came to our door to tell you, Zayn. It was the most awful look. He seemed so angry and resigned...”

“Mum, what exactly are you worried about? Use your words.”

“What if he pushes you away, what if he insists on being the primary caregiver?”

“Well, that's for the best, innit?” Zayn says, confused. “I want to be in its life, but -- I can't raise a baby, like…”

Trisha looked at him with concern, then, but left well enough alone.

Zayn starts going to the studio again. He had to find a producer he liked in Shahid’s stead, and has been getting close with a bloke named James, a bleach blond looker who's got his septum pierced. In the way of caddish and unusually handsome men, they got along immediately.

On the ninth, Zayn realizes with an unpleasant clench in his gut that One Direction is having their first concert since the news broke.

James brings it up himself, after he's given his input on some lyrics Zayn has been working on.

“So this thing with Louis Tomlinson,” he says, kicking his feet up onto the console and raising his eyebrows at Zayn.

Zayn gets cold all over. “Right,” he mutters.

“Pretty insane. You think they'll cancel the tour?”

Zayn realizes he can't do this, can't sit here and talk about this without short-circuiting. The truth wants to erupt out of him volcanically.

“I've got to tell you somethin’,” he says, looking James in the eye.

James’ attention is rapt. He encourages Zayn with a nod.

“I've got NDAs about this,” Zayn lies, “so if you say anythin’, you're in as much trouble as me…”

“Whoa. Alright.”

“I'm…”

Zayn’s heart quickens so fast he gets palpitations. He presses his hand to his bony sternum and massages his chest, breathing deep.

“I'm the dad,” he says softly. “Me and Louis were sleeping together before I left the band. I got him pregnant.”

James lets out a whistle.

“Holy fuck, mate!”

“I know...”

“Aren't you two majorly on the outs?” James exclaims. “Oh, fuck, that all makes so much more sense now, actually. ‘Cos I remember thinkin’ it was weird to call your bandmate _bitchy_ , y’know? That's so loaded, so ex-y.”

Zayn absolutely hates being reminded of this. “I s’pose.”

“Do you two talk?”

Zayn shakes his head. “Not since he told me.”

“Seriously? That’s barmy.”

Zayn doesn't respond, but James doesn't wait for him to. He gets open his laptop and searches Louis on Twitter. Zayn fights a childish urge to close his eyes.

“Papped at LAX last night,” he says.

Louis is dressed down, in a gray hoodie and a loose white shirt. You still can't tell, yet, at least not in those clothes. He's got heavy dark circles under his eyes and an untrimmed beard; he’s grim-faced. He walks behind Liam, who shields him somewhat.

“They've got a concert tonight, apparently,” James says. “What time is it there right now, like six in the morning?”

“Somethin’ like that.”

Zayn stares at the photos.

“He look sad to you?” he murmurs.

James follows his gaze. “Uh. Sort of. Wouldn't you, though?”

Zayn imagines being in Louis’ situation. He imagines if things were reversed, if he had Louis’ baby in him and he was still trapped in that godforsaken band, if paps were screaming at him at the airport, asking him how he felt about being a teen idol who's mysteriously pregnant out of wedlock.

“Yeah. I s’pose.”

“How far along is he?”

“Three months,” Zayn answers.

“Doesn't look it,” James comments. “I remember when my sister got pregnant, she was showing by then, for sure.”

“He's little,” Zayn mutters. “He's a small person.”

He must say this with some measure of tenderness, because James glances at him and asks, “You thinking you want to maybe get back together with him? Make a go of it?”

Zayn wishes he could express in words how conflicted he is about this.

“I dunno,” he says.

 

SAN DIEGO, JULY 9, 2015

Harry stares into the mirror over the sink in the backstage bathroom.

Sound check has just wrapped up. He's deep in thought about how to handle this concert. The audience will be possibly the trickiest one they'll ever have to handle. Louis will be somewhat withdrawn, no matter how hard he works not to be. They'll have to be at their best.

Harry has been at the top of his form since Zayn left. If there's any blessing to his departure, it's that the four of them have become a better band in his absence. Harry had never realized how much dead weight Zayn’s depressive ambivalence created. They miss him painfully, of course, but that too serves to makes their concerts better. It's their desperately needed group emotional catharsis between them and the fans.

Harry had played the voicemail Zayn left him several times over, then brought his phone to Niall and played it for him. Niall had wrinkled his nose in distaste.

“Sort of gross,” he commented. “He's run off on us, 'e's got Louis up the pole, and he wants to talk to you about how he still cares about you? ... Not really the right time, yeah?”

Harry had sighed with difficulty and put his phone back in his pocket. “No,” he agreed.

He kept the voicemail, anyway. He isn't sure why. Maybe he'll delete it later on, when he's more clear-headed.

In the bathroom, Harry breathes in a meditative pattern that brings him as close as he can get to pre-show serenity. He wants to be the most entertaining he's been so far on this tour. He's got to connect deeply with this crowd, no matter how tense they are.

Behind him, the door bangs open. Louis rushes into the first stall, falls to his knees and vomits.

Harry cringes at the sound and then goes to him, rubbing his back as he completely empties his stomach over the course of three rounds of barfing.

“Sorry,” Louis says hoarsely, raising his head slightly. He's clinging piteously to the toilet. “Thought I was done with this. Second trimester’s when you get done with this, innit?”

“It depends, I think,” Harry says, stroking Louis’ hair the way he used to do when they were younger and closer. “I know you're nervous about tonight, too.”

“Nerves don't help,” Louis mutters. “On the way to tell Zayn I got sick, like, three times. Only an hour’s drive.”

Harry feels terrible for him, then. Louis tries to get up of his own volition and stumbles. Harry helps him to his feet.

“Come sit a minute and let me get you some water.”

“No, no, I'm alright,” Louis protests. “Let's just go back.”

“No,” Harry says firmly, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. He leads him out into the hall, sits him down on a plush bench and hands him a few squares of toilet paper that he'd taken with him. Louis wipes his mouth.

Harry leaves him to go find a water cooler. On his way back he pauses for a moment, observing Louis.

He's leaning back against the wall, one hand pressed hard to the slight swell of his stomach and the other pressed to his forehead. He looks for all the world like a lost little boy. Harry wants to comfort him, and then he remembers yet again that the baby is Zayn’s. Each time, it’s like a cold wind passing over him.

He comes up to Louis and nudges him, handing him the water. Louis looks up and takes it gratefully.

“Maybe I should have just gone home,” Louis says, cracking a weak smile.

Harry shrugs.

“You'd beat yourself up over it every day if you had,” he says. “The fans love you, and you love them. They'll forgive all this confusion and drama because you're staying committed to the tour for as long as you can. All they care about is knowing you care. And you do.”

“I do,” Louis agrees. “Thanks, mate.”

His hand remains pressed to his middle. Harry avoids looking at him. Now that the news has broken, now that Louis is showing a bit, now that they're back from their most recent break and they're about to go out on stage tonight with everyone knowing -- this is all becoming that much more real to Harry.

Zayn made a baby with someone else. Louis, of all people, is going to give birth to a baby that looks like Zayn and have that in common with him until the day they both die, while Harry isn't even on speaking terms with him and may never be again.

“It'll be alright,” Harry says, half to Louis and half to himself.

Louis nods and stands, finishing the water.

“Just got to go out there and do our best,” he replies. “All we can ever do.”

 

PITTSBURGH, AUGUST 6, 2015

Zayn smokes for the first hour of his flight and then lies down for the rest of it, mulling over what’s happened between him and Louis in the last month.

He wonders if he was wrong to tell Louis they oughtn’t make a go of it, and then he wonders what alternative there is. There’s no middle for them to meet in, there’s no compromise possible. Their pride is too much for either one of them to give in completely. So what is there for them, if they decide to be together? Zayn flies out to half the dates to -- what? Take Louis out to dinner? Sit there and make small talk while being papped? Go back to the hotel and have uncomfortable, silent missionary? Stand off to the side at concerts like their girlfriends used to, listening to Liam and Harry sing _his_ solos?

And what would Zayn be throwing away? It’s one thing to have a baby with an ex and ex-bandmate, it’s another entirely to forestall your own creative development, your own new identity as an artist separate from the baby cradle of your boyband, by actually being together with said ex.

How is he supposed to sing about great sex and one-night stands if his life has become completely domesticated? How is he supposed to promote himself? His solo career would never get off the ground. He’d never be able to fill the niche he wants to.

But then what about the rosy, tentative fantasies he’s been developing lately of becoming a family man, of going out to record in the mornings and coming back in the evenings to a happy, pregnant Louis, wedding bands on their fingers, a yard and a dog? Could he become that man in a month? Could Louis _ever_ be that man in a hundred years? He doesn’t even like sitting still for ten minutes at a time.

He can’t even figure how to get Louis to communicate with him properly, as things are. At first the lack of texting was on both sides; as time has gone on, it’s revealed itself to be primarily on Louis’ end. Louis doesn’t want to speak to him. Louis seems to not want to reckon with the fact that the same bloke who spurned him is the father of his baby.

This fills Zayn with a desperate panic. He feels he’s in an awful catch-22, where his pride prevents him from doing the things Louis is silently asking him for: the groveling, the prostrating of himself, the apologies. But Louis has the negotiating power. Louis has a hostage, and Zayn’s resentment over this grows stronger by the day. The _last_ thing he wanted when he left was to let Louis get him by the bollocks, and now that’s exactly where Louis has him, in the most literal and primal way. Louis has him trapped by virtue of his own reproductive organs.

Off the plane, he stops at a gas station to get cigarettes. This makes him late, which causes Liam to text him that Louis is angry that he’s late.

Zayn reads this in the car over and scoffs loudly at it. There's a precedent he hates in this, the idea of Liam and Louis as partners separate from him, discussing him, Liam indulging Louis' anger toward him. He knows they're working closely on the record together, and that they've grown tighter in his absence, and none of this can be helped. But some willful instinct in him keeps rising up, protesting Liam's presence. 

He can't say to himself, in honesty, that Liam does not want to fuck Louis. Baby and all.

 

*

 

“Louis, sweet boy, I need more blood,” is the first thing the doctor says when they come in.

Louis sighs but obediently begins rolling up his sleeve as he makes his way over to the bed. Zayn hovers awkwardly in the doorway.

The doctor spots him and smiles at him. “You must be Dad,” she says, sticking her hand out. “Hi. Nice to finally meet you. I’m Joan.”

Zayn crosses the room to shake, and smiles at her. “Zayn.”

“Zayn, I’m sure Louis has told you that we got lucky at his last appointment and found out the sex?” Joan says, as she swabs Louis’ arm above his elbow.

“He did, yeah.”

“Well, congratulations on your girl, then.”

Zayn thanks her and sits on the bed next to Louis. He hesitantly leans closer to him, and Louis settles against him, sort of like old times. He’s warmer than he ever used to be. Zayn read somewhere online that it’s because he’s got more blood in him than normal now; this is borne out when Joan sticks his vein and the vial begins to fill immediately. Louis seems unfazed by the sight of this.

“I would love to do this somewhere more sterile,” Joan mutters. “As unflattering as it is, I understand now why you keep calling me a mob doctor.”

“Do I get candy for this?” Louis says, as they watch his blood rise to the top of the vial.

Joan stops and caps it off, then slides it into an airtight container. She snaps her gloves off into the trash and pulls on a fresh pair. “I _might_ have a lollipop for you…”

Zayn glances over at Louis’ face. He wasn’t lying, earlier, when he told Louis he looked good; his eyes are bright, and his face is rosy and rounder in an appealing way that reminds him of when they were younger.

He thinks of their kiss just now, out in the hall. He isn’t sure how he feels about it. He isn’t even sure how Louis feels about it. Crying isn’t a great reaction to being kissed, although he supposes that Louis probably cries more easily these days, and that he has reason to. 

“Did we want to do a sonogram?” Joan says. “It isn’t necessary, but I have the equipment with me.”

“Aye, I was thinking…” Louis jabs a thumb in his direction. “For Zayn's sake, y’know.”

“I’d like to see,” Zayn says, a bit apprehensively. He knows he’s got to take steps to make this baby more real for himself, but he’s terrified to, all the same.

“Not too much to see, really,” Louis says. “I mean, her lack of a willy, I guess.”

They both laugh.

As Joan fiddles around with things, Louis’ hand goes to his stomach and he runs absent-minded circles over the curve of it with his fingers. Zayn reaches his hand out, and Louis laces their fingers and lays them across his belly.

It’s a strange sensation. Zayn’s heart quickens. He tries to tell himself that that’s his baby in there, but the thought won’t gel, it’s too foreign. He rubs his thumb back and forth over the warm swell under his hand, because Louis is plenty real to him.

“It’s nice havin’ you here for this,” Louis murmurs. “I’m sorry I’ve been -- I dunno. I’m trying.” He looks at Zayn. “I am...”

“I am too,” Zayn mutters. He feels guilty and wounded all at once. His throat is tight and his face is hot. It’s very hard to look at Louis right now, and his plaintive, pretty face, so he just doesn’t. He looks at their hands, instead.

The doctor politely ignores all of this.

“I wish you could feel her moving in me,” Louis says wistfully. “It’s really properly cool.”

“Wish I could, too.”

“Maybe next time you come.”

“Other people should be able to feel by twenty weeks or so,” Joan puts in. “Everyone is different, I will add. You felt her a bit on the early side.”

“She’s precocious,” Louis says, grinning. Zayn smiles.

“Or just a wiggler, like her dad…”

“A wiggler!” Louis exclaims, laughing. “Alright, that’s one word for it. I’m not as hyperactive as I used to be, you'll admit.”

Joan comes over to Louis, then, and gently moves their hands so she can raise his shirt and apply ultrasound gel to him. Zayn settles down next to Louis in the bed. He has a passing urge to hold his hand, then thinks better of it.

He observes the screen as it begins to capture. The familiar image of a head and chest begin to form. He remembers seeing this exact image of his sisters as a kid.

“I do need to weigh you,” Joan says, as an aside.

“Oh, Christ,” Louis groans. “Didn’t you just? Let’s put that one off a week, yeah?”

“Alright, if you insist. Want to hear the heartbeat?”

“Yes,” Louis says, immediately.

Zayn nods. A fear strikes him that they’re not going to hear it; that he’s jinxed this entire thing with his ambivalence and his pridefulness and he’s going to be punished with the horror of Louis miscarrying their baby.

They do hear it. _Whoosh whoosh whoosh._ Louis grins irrepressibly. Zayn is thrilled, and yet he wants to lie down right there and sob with anxiety. He wishes he could talk to their baby, whisper to her and tell her to just wait, to not come out until he’s ready, until he feels like an adult and he’s got his shit sorted.

“Very strong heartbeat,” Joan comments. “Very hearty little baby.”

She prints out a few sonogram photos for Zayn. He sits there numbly in the dingy afternoon light of Pittsburgh that filters through the hotel window, staring at the photos, running his thumb over the edges.

Louis watches him as he does this, one hand against his middle.

“Want to get lunch?” he finally says.

“Louis,” Joan interrupts. “Before I go, your blood pressure’s high.”

“Fuck, again?”

“Yes,” she says, giving him a stern look. “Mildly, but I’m still concerned. It’s come down since you’ve been off cigarettes a while, but I need you less stressed and eating less salt.”

“I can help with the second one,” Louis says. It’s clear he means to be funny, but no one laughs.

“I’m going to have a talk with Sam about that first one,” Joan says. “Is he downstairs?”

“Yeah,” Zayn mutters. When he’d walked into the side entrance of the hotel, there Sam had been, sitting at a side table in the narrow hallway and writing out some paperwork. He’d looked at Zayn over his glasses and scoffed, “So, he finally makes an appearance. Got a lot of nerve, you know that?”

Zayn hadn’t known how to respond to this, so he didn’t, he’d just averted his gaze and walked on by.

 

*

 

Security removes everyone from the hotel cafe so they can eat in peace. Zayn would feel bad about this, but it’s an upscale hotel, and he doesn’t much care if some elderly well-to-dos have to relocate for their afternoon tea.

The cafe is overly cute, with lots of ferns and flowery place settings. Zayn is uncomfortable from jump street. Louis’ emotional discomfort appears to manifest itself physically; he’s constantly shifting in his chair, adjusting his posture. He seems overly aware of being pregnant.

They don’t have much to talk about. Zayn doesn’t want to hear about the tour, or the band, and Louis doesn’t want to hear about Zayn’s solo career. They talk about their families a little. Zayn mentions Jay refusing to hear from Trisha, and Louis rolls his eyes.

“I know. They really ought to talk,” he says. “I’ll say somethin’ to her. Me mum, she acts like I’m still ten years old sometimes.”

“The way of mums.”

Louis examines the menu. “What tea-time food doesn’t have salt?” he says. “Not like I’m hungry anyway.”

“Any reason for that?”

“Acid all up the old esophagus.”

Zayn reflects that it’s a strange feeling to have caused this by fucking him. He’s made a bloke pull a hamstring once, but he’s never caused someone’s acid reflux, or their weight gain, or their bleeding gums and insomnia.

“Sorry,” he says.

Louis snorts. “It’s alright.”

“Are you like…” Zayn chews at his bottom lip. “Is everythin’ good with you and her? Health-wise?”

Louis nods and takes a sip of water.

“Let’s see,” he says, and starts ticking off on his fingers. “She’s healthy. She’s a girl. Joan’s trained to do this thing… I forgot what it’s called, nuchal somethin’, but she did that and she didn’t see any birth defects. I’ve gained eight and a half pounds, for the record.”

Zayn smiles wistfully; it’s very like Louis to know his weight by fractions.

“We’ve cancelled enough dates that I get two full days off a week… I’ve got more energy now, I haven’t thrown up since Seattle, so that’s a victory. We’ve worked out a stage routine where I can sit a lot of the time and have the boys sort of cycle around to me for banter. We’ve just filmed the videos for our first two singles, so that’s out of the way. Bloodwork looks good. Anythin’ else?”

Zayn drums his fingers on the table. “Dunno,” he says.

A waiter comes over to take their orders. Zayn gets a sandwich, and Louis reluctantly gets the blandest-sounding salad on the menu.

"God, I miss pizza," he mutters.

“So... are you good to like, have the baby?” Zayn asks, as soon as the waiter’s back is turned.

Louis cocks an eyebrow. “What d’you mean?”

“Like... are you, uh… cleared for takeoff?”

Louis starts laughing. “I s’pose so,” he says. “Sort of been putting off having that whole chat with her. The doctor, I mean, not the baby... I don’t see any reason I couldn’t, like, get the job done, though.”

He seems to very much not want to discuss this, so Zayn doesn’t press him. He glances at his phone, scrolling through a backlog of texts since he got off the plane.

“They’ll go in and get her, if I can’t,” Louis eventually adds. “She won’t be trapped up there forever, mate.”

This should be comforting, but isn’t; his anxiety makes him want to imagine some nightmarish scenario where they have to drag his daughter out of Louis with forceps, shattering his pelvis and deforming their child in the process. Or a C-section, which Zayn for some reason imagines being performed with a table saw.

“I know,” he says defensively. “Just, I dunno. Cut me some slack, this all feels realer after today.”

Louis nods. “Makes sense.”

“Like…” Zayn swallows. His mouth is dry. “I'm gonna be a dad.”

Louis touches the soft swell of his belly, and smiles at him.

“You're gonna be a dad,” he confirms.

 

*

 

Louis accompanies him to the side exit. Sam has vanished, to Zayn’s relief, leaving behind some crumpled paper and an empty styrofoam cup of coffee.

They have a strained goodbye. Zayn’s head is buzzing, and he knows he needs eight or so hours alone to digest the reality of seeing Louis visibly pregnant, watching the sonogram, hearing their daughter’s tiny heart in her tiny chest. This is much more heavy and real than an NHS webpage telling him that kidneys have developed by twelve weeks of pregnancy or a clipped text from Louis telling him they’re having a girl. This is the girl herself.

Louis, for his own part, seems disappointed and withdrawn. Zayn can tell that there’s still some part of him longing for Zayn to propose, or to ask to return to the band or the tour. They push and pull at each other silently, each resenting the other for not capitulating, their prides continually wounded.

When they move to say goodbye, Louis goes in for a hug right as Zayn reaches out to feel his stomach. A hug doesn’t even occur to him. Zayn realizes his mistake and corrects, bringing him into his arms, but the damage is done. They separate, and Louis’ eyes have dimmed somewhat.

Zayn knows him well enough to sense what he’s thinking, that Zayn's affection toward him is contingent on him having his baby _._ And maybe he’s right. If Louis weren’t pregnant, they would have fought out their issues on fair ground -- or more likely, they still wouldn’t be talking. If Louis weren’t pregnant, Zayn wouldn’t put up with his pettiness, his passive aggression, his steadily-burning anger. And the reverse is just as true. If Louis weren’t pregnant, he would never pretend for a minute like he didn’t on some level still loathe Zayn for leaving or for calling him bitchy.

Zayn hopes that his tenderness toward Louis continues after the baby is born. In some ways, he’ll always feel tenderly toward Louis, he knows. But so much of what he feels right now is instinctual, just raw impulse he has no control over. He sees Louis soft-eyed and pink-cheeked and beginning to grow round with their child, and he wants to be nice to him because of it. How long after she’s born can that possibly last, for two people who aren’t together and can’t find it in themselves to be?

 

LONDON, AUGUST 15, 2015

Zayn has bad insomnia the night he finds out about Liam and Louis.

He’s out partying until one thirty. He finds that so aggressively rejecting the boyband label has garnered him quite a lot of good will with a set of cool people who had liked him previously but were hesitant to taint themselves with dorkiness by association. Zayn felt sort of shitty about it at first, being welcomed into this new fold at the expense of the band, but he had quickly gotten over this by remembering how fast they all were to turn from him.

All of them but Liam, who hasn’t talked to him in six days. He counts the days out in his head as he leaves the club.

Tonight, he'd had a chance or three to pull, but he hadn’t been quite up to it; he’s nervous about testing out his newly depressive dick with a unfamiliar person. With Louis, it was fine if he had a night or five where he couldn't get it up. They knew each other well enough for it not to matter.

With these new people he’s around -- impossibly gorgeous and gangly models, famous avant-garde photographers who tell Zayn with hungry smiles that they’d love to shoot him ‘ _in a more mature fashion_ ’ sometime, indie rappers and their video girls, fashion standard-bearers and people who are pretty on Instagram for a living -- taking one home and not being able to maintain a hard-on would be the stuff of his anxious nightmares.

Back at his house, he can’t sleep; he wanders the dark halls and feels his own scattered graffiti staring at him. It’s three his time when he pulls his phone out and calls Liam. He’s beginning to get worried, though he isn’t sure yet of what. He knows Louis is alright; he’d responded to Zayn almost immediately the other day, with his excuse about Liam being busy.

Zayn had surreptitiously checked concert photos out on Twitter, as well. Louis is fine, same as ever, clearly finding it more and more difficult to obscure his baby bump under loose Black Sabbath tanks, but seeming cheerful all the same. He and Liam have interacted less on stage in recent days, Zayn notices.

He’s naive enough, still, to think that maybe it had occurred to Liam once Zayn came out to visit that he really ought to step away from the situation and let his mates sort this one out themselves. Zayn works hard to convince himself that Liam has pulled away from Louis in recent days as well, that he’s just spending a lot of time working out or a lot of time on his music or a lot of time catching up on his sleep.

And then Louis answers Liam’s phone, says, “Yeah?” like a girlfriend, and Zayn’s blood runs cold.

He knows instantly. He knows what he’s been trying not to know for months now.

Zayn clears his throat.

“Why are you answerin’ Liam's phone?”

He’s already sick to his stomach. He wants to beg like an insane person, _Tell me he isn’t fucking you._

“I'm hanging out in his room, mate, as I actually do all the time,” Louis says.

Zayn knows exactly what lying by omission sounds like. Zayn has been the bloke in the bed -- while whoever he just fucked showers it off -- lying to his fiancée that nothing is going on, that he’s at his hotel, that he’s tired and just wants to go to bed and he’ll call her tomorrow.

Louis is lying.

“Put him on,” Zayn demands.

“He’s in the shower.”

The alarms clanging in Zayn’s head increase by a factor of ten.

He says it, then, because there’s nothing else to say.

“Is somethin’ goin’ on between you two?”

Anger builds in him as Louis hesitates. He prays the answer still may turn out to be no, he wants so badly to be overreacting, to be the crazy asshole baby daddy and not the stupid fucking chump.

“Zayn,” Louis says softly, like he’s pleading with him.

Zayn sucks in air through his teeth like he’s been wounded.

“Holy shit,” he hisses. “Holy fuckin’ shit. Tell me there isn't.”

“Zayn...”

Zayn hates him for how gutless he sounds right now, nothing like the Louis he used to love. He wishes Louis would treat him like a real enemy worthy of actual scorn, wishes he would scream at him, “YEAH, I’M FUCKING HIM,” and just let it all be over with.

“Why are you even asking?”

“I’m not stupid! I’ve got _eyes!”_

Louis tells him to calm down, which only serves to incense him further.

“Tell me there isn’t anything,” Zayn snaps. It’s more of a dare than a real request. _Lie to me, I dare you._ “Right now.”

“I can't. Can’t tell you that, man.”

A levee inside of Zayn breaks. Horrendous, nauseating disappointment courses through his body like sepsis. He wants to beat Liam’s face in and make a weeping Louis watch.

What had Brier said? _Being a putative father can get ugly._

He hears Liam’s voice in the background. He stands frozen in his foyer, his elbow aching from holding the phone to his ear with so much tension in his arm.

“Is that Liam? Let me talk to him,” he says very calmly.

“I shouldn’t,” Louis says.

Zayn thinks he’s never heard anything dumber in his life.

“Hand him the phone, Louis.”

“Not unless he wants to talk to you,” Louis says.

“I don't care what he wants. Hand him the phone.”

Zayn hears them converse quietly after this. He notes with numb gratification that they sound deeply guilty.

“Zayn?” Liam finally says, in a tiny, mousy voice, as if his cock has not just taken six years of friendship and drowned it to death.

“You are fuckin’ unbelievable,” Zayn growls. “I cannot fuckin’ believe you. This is the one thing I would have asked you never to do, if I had even ever thought you’d do it --”

“I know. I know, _I know_. Look --”

“So you admit it? You admit -- how long?”

“I admit it,” Liam says, with an obnoxious fearlessness that Zayn knows he's only adopting because Louis is in earshot. “Only a few days now. Zayn, it just... happened.”

“It just _happened_ that you waited ‘til the second I was gone again and stuffed your cock into the bloke who’s ‘avin’ my baby?”

“It wasn't like that! Zayn, that isn't fair. He's not -- look, he doesn't _belong_ to you!”

“I know we aren’t together!” Zayn shouts. “But you couldn’t even wait a fuckin’ _second!”_

“I've hardly ever felt worse about anything in my life, I promise you!”

“GOOD,” Zayn bellows.

A door slams, and Liam begins talking more quietly, like he’s gone into another room to avoid Louis. Zayn is trembling.

“I hate you,” he says. “I really fuckin’ do. This is disgustin’. I can't even think about it.”

“Zayn, Zayn, please listen, please. I’m -- I didn’t -- I’m in _love_ with him, alright? I’ve _been_ in love with him --”

Zayn doesn’t want to hear this, it hurts far too much.

“-- I’m so sorry, I never wanted to hurt you, I tried so hard to stay away from him, I tried to give it space, he was so convinced you’d never make a go of it, I asked so many times, I even tried to push him toward you --”

“Fuck off!”

“You have got to believe me that I’ve been sick about this ever since it happened,” Liam says tearily into the phone.

“Not too sick about it to stop from putting your dick in him, yeah? I didn’t even think you were capable of this, honestly. I thought you ‘ad my fuckin’ back on this one!”

“Zayn --”

“So have you been? Stuffin’ ‘im? Every night, like? Listenin’ to ‘im moan and squeal? Feel like a big tough alpha? You get hard pretendin’ that's _your_ baby in him?”

“Don’t _talk_ about it like that,” Liam wails in childlike despair.

“I don’t want to make a go of it with him,” Zayn says viciously, and he doesn’t even know if it’s true or not. The room is spinning. _Blow it up,_ the crazy voice in his head hisses, _blow it all up and don't look back._ “I don’t give a fuck. You want him, have him, ‘e’s yours now, Liam! But remember the baby in him is _mine!”_

“It’s his baby too!” Liam hisses. “It’s his body! You keep acting like this doesn’t affect his fucking life at all! Do you know what he’s going through? The constant stress, the humiliation, the way they talk about him in the rags? No! 'Cos you refuse to be here! You know who is here? _Me!”_

“Well, congratulations,” Zayn says nastily. “You get the big prize, a massive stonkin’ pain in the arse who’s knocked up wiv someone else’s kid. What a good one, Liam, good job! Enjoy!”

“Don’t talk about Louis like that, I swear to fucking God.”

Liam's voice is frightening in its sudden intensity, but Zayn is emboldened by the ocean between them. “I’ll talk about him however I like!” he screams.

“Not to me you won’t!”

Zayn is drunk on his own meanness. It pours out of him. “Is this all ‘cos Sophia wouldn’t let your pathetic arse knock ‘er up and marry ‘er? You had to go crawlin’ to somebody who was already pregnant and extra desperate? And right there on tour with you, too, how convenient!”

“Zayn,” Liam says, sounding like he might cry.

“I don’t want to talk to you anymore,” Zayn snaps. “I don’t want to talk to ‘im, either. Fuck off. Leave me alone.”

He hangs up.

 

LONDON, AUGUST 16, 2015

Zayn wakes up and finds himself already in the middle of vomiting.

He manages to stop, pushes himself off his bed, rushes to the toilet and ends up being sick on the floor anyway. He lies there on the marble floor, his face pressed to the cool surface, his head throbbing so hard from his hangover that he can't see.

At some point he manages to crawl back to his bedroom and pull his phone off the table. He rings his new personal assistant, Syena, and moans something about drinking too much before he has to stop talking for fear of vomiting more.

It takes more than an hour, but she shows up with an illicitly sourced banana bag and IV stand that she hooks up to him while reading instructions out loud from WikiHow. As she does this, his housekeeper grimly bags up his soiled linens like it's a crime scene.

“Thanks,” Zayn mutters as she helps him back into bed.

Syena doesn't answer; she's scrolling through his phone. “Alright, looks like you didn't send any texts, or make any calls after this one to Liam.”

He doesn't want to think about that call.

“How much did you have to drink?”

Zayn thinks about it for a while. “A handle,” he finally says.

She balks. “An entire handle? By yourself?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” she says carefully. “Do you need anything, right now?”

“Sleep.”

He had already drank plenty at the club, and after getting off the phone with Liam had stupidly drank much more. He can drink quite a bit now without getting sick. It's become a talent of his.

 

*

 

Zayn goes to the studio, because there's nothing else for him to do. He gets out a pad of paper in the car over to write some lyrics, then just writes _Cunt cunt cunt cunt CUNTS!!!!!_ and sets it aside.

He doesn't want to tell James. He doesn't want to tell anybody. But he gets into the booth and his jaw tightens like someone's taken a wrench to it and is steadily twisting.

He takes his headphones off, suddenly unable to breathe.

“Wassap, mate?” James says.

“If I told you somethin’,” Zayn says slowly, “somethin’ that also couldn't leave this room…”

James nods. “It about your kid?” he says, his voice tinny over the intercom. “You getting back together with Louis, or something?”

Zayn leaves the booth and comes into the control room. He takes a seat.

Silence forms. Zayn luxuriates in it, unable to speak, enjoying the fact that James will sit there for as long as it takes him to form words. Ever since he joined the band, and now, ever since he left the band, being made to talk has been the worst part of it all. Interviewers, his parents, now Louis. _Explain yourself, Zayn. Tell me about Zayn. Tell me who Zayn is. Tell me what Zayn is thinking._

Silence. A gorgeous cloak of silence, and he can have as much of it as he wants, in this long moment.

“Louis has started fucking somebody,” Zayn says.

The words are chalky in his mouth.

James’ mouth drops. “Who?”

“I can’t say.”

“A bloke?”

“Yeah.”

“Another alpha?”

Zayn just nods.

James sighs. “What a pisser. Real whore antics.”

“No,” Zayn says, instantly. “No, I don’t want to hear that.”

“Sorry, but Jesus Christ.”

Zayn hates Louis in this moment, hates him enough that his skin is electrified by the casual vitriol with which James calls him a whore, but he hates him because he loves him. He hates him because he can’t love him enough. He hates him because what he's been sensing this whole time has come to pass; that if he left Louis alone in that band, if he broke Louis’ heart by leaving, Louis would go to Liam. Even the baby he left behind inside of Louis could not stop this inexorable geometry proof of a situation: _if x, then y._

Louis needs to be loved so fully and endlessly, he needs to be adored, and Zayn can’t do it. Zayn is too selfish. Zayn loves himself too much to make someone else the number one.

But Liam would. Liam loves far too hard and is always punished for it, but it never seems to stop him. Liam needs to bury his own ego inside of someone else. Liam needs to ride in on a white horse. Zayn created the ideal moment for the two of them to get together. He sees it now like it’s the clearest thing in the world. He was right to be suspicious.

He’s not a whore, Zayn wants to say, he’s terribly lonely, and I know this because I was terribly lonely too, we used to be lonely together.

 

*

 

His backing band comes in and lays down some instrumentals. They’re really talented, the girls in particular.

As he and James watch them from behind the one-way mirror, Zayn murmurs, “I take it back. Tell people I’m the dad.”

James glances at him in alarm. “Excuse me?”

“Tell people. Tell industry people. Spread it around a bit.”

“Mate, you’ve got NDAs!”

“I lied, they’re invalid,” Zayn says. “Accordin’ to my solicitors, anyway.”

“Holy shit,” James says. “I mean, if you’re sure?”

“He’s fuckin’ someone else,” Zayn says. “I haven’t got to explain to you what position that puts me in. That’s my daughter in there. People ought to know.”

James nods slowly. Zayn turns from him, effectively ending the conversation. His heart is pounding in his chest.

 

COLUMBUS, AUGUST 18, 2015

Liam is subsumed in guilt in the next few days. He’s eaten alive by it. It is so crushing and acidic, lying beneath his sternum like a vile of poison that broke in his throat in the way down and is slowly seeping into his tissues.

The guilt is powerful to the point that he can’t actually process it. He feels himself pushing it away, he feels himself grow numb as he detaches it from himself like he’s peeling his own skin off very slowly, going after himself each day with a linoleum knife, peeling it up and off. He pushes Zayn away in his head. He forces himself to remember the most hateful things Zayn said, to make this easier.

Liam can’t bring himself to stop touching Louis, though it makes the poison eat deeper into him. But what else can he do? They can’t stop now. He can’t stop now. Zayn has already abandoned Louis, and since Liam’s pushed Zayn further away, he can’t now himself abandon Louis. He’s got to stick by his side.

Zayn's reproachful silence makes it all that much worse. Louis pretends rather aggressively not to care, but Liam can tell he's crushed. He, too, is crushed.

The other reason he can't stop touching Louis is because he's deeply infatuated with him, has been so for months, and is overjoyed that he’s finally gotten to be with him. Even in spite of the guilt, it's as every bit as dazzlingly wonderful as he imagined it to be. He hasn't been able to think straight since they fucked the first time. All he thinks about is Louis; he barely eats, he barely sleeps. They spend most nights in the same bed if they can get away with it, fucking like teenagers and then curled up with each other, talking for hours about music. Liam falls for him harder every day.

The Columbus date is thrilling. Heat lightning strikes over the parking lot; you can smell the electricity in the air. Everyone is on top of their game. Harry is hilarious, and moves across the stage like a ballerina, making every square foot of it his domain until it seems to become the size of a postage stamp for him. Niall’s own spirits are buoyed by this; he's great on the guitar and extra chipper.

Louis is better than he’s been for a while. His stage persona has always fascinated Liam. He’s just himself, magnified; cheekily bombastic, a hummingbird of bravado, but so vulnerable when he sings.

There’s a serenity to him tonight that Liam has been seeing more of lately, at least when they’re alone together. This is the first time he’s seen it on stage. It fascinates him. He’s got this tender, almost mystical presence, like he knows something they all don’t, like he carries an entire world inside of him instead of one little life. This sort of strangeness is something Liam usually associates with Harry. Possibly Harry has just always been more in touch with his womb than Louis has, and now Louis is tapping into a new aspect of himself.

Between songs, Harry is bantering with a dad in the audience, and across the stage Louis suddenly stops where he stands with a peculiar look on his face, then smiles. He looks to Liam, knowing instinctively where he is, and Liam slowly crosses the stage to get close without even being asked.

Louis leans into Liam’s ear and tells him, in a sweet, happy voice, that the baby is kicking. He always sounds so chuffed about this. He must love this baby so dearly already.

Liam reaches out hesitantly. On-stage, they aren’t supposed to acknowledge that Louis is pregnant. He’ll catch hell from Sam about this. On top of that, the last thing he wants Zayn to see is photos of him touching Louis’ belly. It'll confirm every terrible idea he has about them.

It’s strange to touch him like this, too, under the glaring lights and the deafening roar of the crowd. It’s so personal and fraught for them, and yet no one knows. Not a soul but them and Zayn. None of the thousands of people laid out before them having any idea what’s going on here.

His hand stretches out the rest of the way.

Louis has been in a struggle recently between his own insecurity over being visibly pregnant on-stage and his campaign of insubordination toward management, who continue to talk about him in hushed, scandalized whispers and try to cover him up in too-big hoodies even on nights when it’s ninety degrees out.

Tonight, Mary had handed him a loose tank that Sam had recommended he wear, ‘to keep it subtle’. Louis had said, rather loudly, “So is he just fuckin’ _ashamed_ of me, then, or what?”

When Mary or anyone else was unable to respond to this, he’d begged her to please pull out something that did not try, pathetically and unsuccessfully, to cloak him.

He ended up in a tight black henley that gives away everything. It’s a _fuck you_ in the form of a shirt. He looks fantastic.

Liam’s hand gently cups the curve of his stomach. Louis splays his hand over top of Liam’s and presses it harder to his skin. He gazes at Liam with such powerful affection that Liam shivers in the August heat.

The girls in front of them are absolutely losing their minds over this. Liam tries not to grin.

“I can’t feel it,” he says, after a moment of trying desperately. All he feels under his hand is firm warmth.

Louis shakes his head to indicate he can’t hear. Liam removes his hand and wraps it around Louis’ shoulders, pulling him in close. He tugs one in-ear out very gently.

“I still can’t feel her yet,” he repeats.

“Shit,” Louis says wistfully. “I wish you could… it’s bloody incredible...”

His face is bright with excitement; his own hands have replaced Liam’s on his middle.

Liam doesn’t want to leave his side or stop touching him. His breathing has changed, and so has Louis’. Liam aches for him. He quickly puts space between the two of them.

When he’s far enough away, Louis looks over at him from under his fringe. His serenity spills out of him like light. He smiles like there’s nothing wrong in the world. Liam wants to call to him hysterically, to yell, _Everything is wrong, I’ve ruined everything, I’ve done the one thing I wasn’t supposed to do. I take care of things, I don’t make a mess of them._

He wants to take care of Louis, though, and the baby, so much more than he wants to take care of Zayn or the band. He loves Louis like he loves the sun. He’s fighting his instincts and losing very, very badly.

 

*

 

Louis comes to his door that night, like he does so often now.

“Hey,” Liam says softly.

Louis gazes up at him and gives him that charming smile of his. Liam feels his resolve weakening.

“I got lonely,” he murmurs.

“You always do,” Liam says gently.

Louis steps close to him, running his hands through Liam’s hair. His touch is wonderful. Liam hasn’t had a chance to shower yet, and his scalp is sweaty and itchy. He leans into Louis’ fingers gratefully, slipping his hand around his waist.

They inch closer and closer to each other until they’re nuzzling. Liam presses his lips to Louis’ throat, keeping his ears pricked. He presses a hand to Louis’ chest. Louis’ heart is thumping fast, and Louis is breathing heavily in his ear.

“Payno,” he whispers.

Liam’s breath hitches. Louis’ voice is like witchcraft to him. He can scarcely believe that reverent tone is for him, that the moans and sighs are for him, the late-night sweet laughter and pillow talk murmurings. He’s been waiting so long.

“We should stop,” Liam says, fighting himself again.

“No, no, love,” Louis says, with a breathy laugh. He cups Liam’s face in his hands. “We shouldn’t do anything of the sort.”

“I just mean until you hear from Zayn,” Liam whispers. “Just for a little bit.”

Louis shakes his head. “I didn’t come here to talk about Zayn,” he says, budging Liam back into his room.

Liam obediently is budged. “We shouldn’t,” he repeats, as Louis shuts the door behind them and then comes into his arms, sliding his hands over the back of Liam’s neck and kissing him deep, with plenty of tongue.

He’s good at this. Liam didn’t realize how good at this he was until Louis first took aim at him. Of course, at that point, he was already done for.

“Liam,” Louis whispers, looking into his eyes and smiling cheekily. “Come on. I know what you want.”

That isn’t quite fair. Anyone would know what Liam wants, considering he’s rock hard against Louis’ leg and has his hand down the back of his joggers, squeezing his arse.

They fall back onto the bed. Louis sits astride him, cowgirl style, digging his thumbs into Liam’s hips. Liam’s hands are firm on his thighs.

He loves how curvy Louis is lately, how warm and flushed and glowing he is, but when he looks at Louis from this angle, he’s too strongly confronted by the baby and feels like Zayn is watching, somehow.

Liam rolls them over so Louis is under him, because then he doesn’t have to look, he can just look Louis in his face. They disrobe quickly.

“It’s still alright to fuck, right?” he mutters, even as he’s fingering Louis.

Louis runs his hand through his hair and arches back against the bed, nodding hard in response.

“Why can’t I stop,” Liam whispers, as he presses his lips to Louis’ neck and moves them both up and down the bed as he rocks into Louis. Louis clenches around him and sighs happily, fucking his fingers. He’s insatiable lately, or maybe he’s always like this. Liam wouldn’t know.

“No one needs to stop,” Louis assures him, gripping the back of his neck.

“But even if we did, I can’t. I can’t stop touching you…”

“That’s a good thing,” Louis murmurs, gazing into his eyes. “Means it’s real.”

Liam slides his cock into him, then, because there’s really nothing else for it. Louis makes a wonderful noise deep in his throat and clutches at him. Liam gets lost in the magic of him, the beautiful tight heat of him, Louis’ strong arms maneuvering Liam’s body above himself, the dig of Louis’ nails into his back and the sounds he makes.

They make love a bit harder that night, which isn’t saying much since Liam generally treats him like he’s made of bone china. It’s hard enough, though, that the bed makes noise and Louis scrapes his nails down Liam’s back, moaning his name and then gasping “Yes, yes, YES, _yes,”_ loudly enough that Liam becomes concerned about the fact that Paddy’s in the room next to him. He supposes it doesn’t help that he’s fondling Louis’ nipples, which are beyond sensitive lately.

Louis comes hard and all over Liam’s stomach, to the point that after he’s come himself, Liam has to go fetch a flannel and clean up. He returns to Louis, who’s turned the TV on, and has nicked a t-shirt of Liam’s to change into.

“Oi, thief,” Liam complains.

“Don’t you want me comfortable, if I’m sleeping in here?” Louis says amiably. “Christ, there’s absolutely nothin’ on. Want to just go to sleep, or did you actually want to have a chat?”

Liam nods hard.

“I don’t know which one you’re nodding at, lad,” Louis says, smiling at him.

“Sorry. To sleep.”

Louis seems relieved by this. Liam joins him in bed and sidles up behind him, spooning him.

He had gotten this idea recently that the two of them ought to sleep apart after sex, until a few nights ago when Louis had come to him at five AM, extremely stressed out and professing that he couldn’t shut his brain up and go to bed anymore without someone there to quiet him. So they’ve been in the same bed every night since.

Liam noticeably avoids touching Louis’ middle. Louis eventually drags his hand there, covering it with his own.

“Don't feel weird about it,” he murmurs sleepily. “I like you to touch me there…”

“I just feel guilty,” Liam says softly against the back of his neck.

“I know,” Louis says regretfully. “I don’t mean to make it worse. I just -- it makes me feel safe… I can't sleep much anymore, ‘less I feel safe.”

He pauses.

“I wish Zayn hadn't forgotten,” he says, his voice cracking. “How much I need this. I wish it'd occur to him, like, that I'd need it even more now.”

Liam holds him tighter, stroking his hair. He breathes in the smell of the back of Louis’ neck, and strokes his fingers up and down the curve of his belly. If he isn’t looking directly at Louis, it’s easier to pretend that it’s just another part of him, like a rib or a thigh.

Louis relaxes back against him, pliant in his arms. Liam can feel him falling asleep. He himself won’t go down for another half-hour or so, but Louis’ warm weight and quiet snores help him on his way.

“Thanks for still bein’ attracted to me,” Louis mumbles.

Liam laughs in surprise. “Um, you’re welcome? What’s that even mean?”

“I dunno, Payno, just… not everyone would be.”

“I liked you before,” Liam says, and kisses the bone at the top of Louis’ spine. “I like you always.”

Louis exhales against the pillow. He doesn’t say anything else. Liam keeps stroking him, keeps kissing him, holds him tenderly until he falls asleep.

 

LONDON, AUGUST 19, 2015

TMZ calls Zayn when he’s still passed out.

He oughtn’t be, really. It’s six AM their time and eleven AM his. He’s been sleeping through calls and alarms all morning. He isn’t sure why he picks up this one, except maybe that it’s a restricted number and he’s curious.

“Zayn Malik?”

“Yeah,” he says, yawning.

“This is Dax Holt with TMZ. Got a minute?”

“Got a hundred of ‘em, mate.”

Dax laughs. “Excellent. So you may know, we’re very on top of this story about your ex-bandmate’s pregnancy.”

Zayn is silent.

“Hello?”

“I’m here,” he says. “I know.”

Dax clears his throat. “We’ve got a photo of you at a gas station in Pittsburgh on the sixth. I’ve got a photo of Tomlinson’s ob-gyn leaving the band’s hotel on the sixth, later that day. And somebody at RCA just called in a tip to us. Care to guess what the tip was?”

“No idea,” Zayn says flatly. He wants this news out, he wants to purge himself of the secret of his paternity and to claim his daughter publicly, but he hates the way this douchebag is talking to him.

“The tip was that you’re the father of Tomlinson’s baby. Care to comment?”

Zayn lets a very long ten seconds elapse. He counts it out on his Rolex.

“Yeah,” he finally mutters. “Yeah, I’m the dad.”

Dax blows out a breath of air. “Holy shit. That’s on the record? You’re telling me that, straight up. I’m not going to print that and then get some fucking C&D like we always get from you guys? Not that it matters.”

“Straight up,” Zayn says. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”

“I can’t believe their management wouldn’t muzzle you on this, though.”

“Off the record, they fucked up the paperwork for it.”

Dax laughs with sick glee. Zayn’s stomach turns. He’s starting to realize the shitshow he’s sending Louis into, now, but he’s so angry, and it’s too late anyway. The cat has left the bag.

“So tell me more, are you guys getting along at all? Are you getting back together? How long were you together? Is this why you left the band?”

“I left the band for the reasons I said I left the band,” Zayn snaps. “There's no big story here, creep, I'm not sayin’ anything else.”

“So you're on bad terms, then? How do you feel about the baby?”

“I’m hangin’ up, now,” he warns.

“Alright, man. We’re going to call back later, but in the meantime, have a good one. And hey, thanks.”

“Fuck you,” Zayn says, without meaning to, and then he hangs up.

 

*

 

Louis’ interview with Cheryl Hickey is nauseating.

After Zayn grits his teeth through a second interview with TMZ, Louis doing damage control is the last thing he wants to watch, but a rep of his begs him to.

“You ought to know what’s being said,” she insists. He supposes she’s right, so he gets really stoned first and then asks Syena if she can get ET Canada on his TV for him. She can.

“So is this why you were wasted the other night?” she asks him, as she squints at the instructions on her phone, holding the remote in the other hand.

Zayn bites off a hangnail. He’s curled up on the massive gray couch in his sitting room. It’s raining, and the light that filters in is wan and soft.

“Sort of,” he mutters.

“Sorry,” she says, genuinely.

“Why sorry?”

“Just... I know what a headfuck that band is for you,” she replies.

Zayn nods, even though he’s very high and just wants her to leave him alone.

She does. Zayn sits in solitude and watches the entire interview, his head buzzing. The things Louis says are so banal, Zayn finds them hard to concentrate on. He mostly observes him, watches the tenseness of his body language and his fake smiles and laughs.

After a few minutes he closes his eyes and just listens to the sound of Louis’ voice. He misses him dearly right now. The worse he feels, lately, the more he longs for the time when Louis could talk him down from anything. Now he dreads their every interaction. The conversation they had earlier today was equal parts revelatory and painful.

 _Sometimes I wish it was Liam that got me pregnant_. But then, after that -- _I don't want someone else's baby. I want the one I've got, the one we made._

Which one is more true? He supposes they could be equally so. He supposes this is as hard for Louis as it is for him, in an entirely different way.

Toward the end, Louis mentions to Cheryl he’s been listening to Lauryn Hill’s album lately. Zayn’s heart jumps. He loves Lauryn Hill, and the Fugees too. It hadn’t occurred to him that Louis could relate to her right now.

The moment the interview ends, his mobile begins to ring.

It’s a strange number, and he thinks insanely that it might be Louis; that he’s had a change of heart, and couldn’t wait until he got off set to call him, that he grabbed some random crew member’s phone to ring Zayn and tell him he wants to come home.

It isn’t Louis. It’s his mother.

“Hi, Zayn,” Jay says.

“Hi,” he says. “Funny to hear from you.”

“I’m sure it is.”

She sounds kind, and like she isn’t angry with him at all.

“Were you watching that interview, just now?”

“I was, yeah,” he says.

Jay sighs. “Right. So, I think we ought to meet up and talk.”

“Okay,” Zayn mutters. “When?”

“Could I come over tomorrow?”

“You want to come over?”

“My house is a bit crowded,” she says, and laughs.

“Cool, that’s fine,” Zayn says. “I mean, mine ain’t at all.”

He pauses.

“I didn’t mean for that to sound sad,” he says.

“I didn’t think it did,” Jay assures him. “Noon alright?”

“Noon’s fine. If I’m asleep when you get here just, like, ring me.”

She laughs again. He likes to hear it. It sounds like Louis’ laugh.

“Alright, noon then. Text me your address, please.”

 

LONDON, AUGUST 20, 2015

Zayn doesn’t sleep in late that morning. He wakes early, sweaty and twisted up in his duvet, and finds he can’t get back to sleep.

He comes downstairs, and Syena has left coffee for him and printed out an email from his rep that lists all of the various publications and rags that have asked for an interview with him. A second email asks him to approve a pat statement for wide distribution.

_Zayn and Louis Tomlinson are, as Louis has stated, on amicable terms and communicate often. Zayn has flown out to visit the OTRA tour several times to accompany Louis to doctor’s visits, and has plans to fly out more before the tour wraps up. Zayn has no plans to return to One Direction and continues to develop his solo career. He and Louis are not in a relationship. He asks for privacy at this time to better focus on his impending fatherhood, and his first album._

Zayn taps off a text to both of them, _statement looks fine._

He scrolls way down in iMessage, then, and hovers over Harry’s name. He knows he ought to leave well enough alone, but being silent in the wake of this going public feels worse.

Zayn sends him _I’m sorry_. Just those two words. There isn’t anything else to say.

He tries to send the same to Perrie. It bounces back undelivered. She must have changed her number, and he can't really say he blames her.

 

*

 

Jay arrives at noon sharp.

Zayn welcomes her in. He realized too late in the morning that his house is full of his own graffiti and reeks of pot. He idly hopes that she’s used enough to Louis that she won’t mind.

He’s also a terrible host who has nothing in his fridge except for some old antibiotics and weeks-old leftovers. He supposes when you get someone’s son pregnant, you should at least offer them a cheese plate, or something.

It’s this instinct that causes him to apologize to her before she’s even finished sitting down.

“Sorry for what?” Jay says, looking at him with twinkling eyes.

Zayn stands there, awkward as can be. “Um,” he mumbles. “For… I dunno. Getting Louis into this mess.”

She flaps her hand dismissively and beckons for him to sit down across from her, which he does.

“D’you mind if I smoke?” he says.

“Yes.”

Zayn sighs and laces his hands in his lap.

“I don’t blame you for _that_ ,” Jay says. “These things happen. I was angry with you at first, of course, because he's my baby, but it isn’t as if -- I know Louis,” she says, and laughs. “I first caught him snogging a girl on the front porch when he was a Year Six. I don’t think he’s some wide-eyed innocent you took advantage of, that would be insulting to the both of you.”

“That’s what the media thinks,” Zayn mutters. “I’m tryin’ not to look at any of it. But you see it, don’t you? They always made me the… this, like, mysterious asshole, look how bad and broodin’ and _dark_ he is, and you know how they characterized Louis… it’s like it was tailor-made for this to happen.”

“It bothers him, too,” Jay says. “He hates people not taking him seriously.”

“It’s racial on my end,” Zayn says, looking at her hard. His jaw twitches and he tries not to get upset. “You know that, don’t you?”

“Of course I do,” she says gently. “And I’m sorry for that.”

“As awful as some of my fans are bein’ t’ him,” Zayn mutters, “and I know they are, like, but -- just this mornin’, I was on Twitter, I shouldn’t’ve been. Maybe I ought to delete again. But I see me mentions. I’m not fuckin’ blind. _His_ fans are sayin’ some pretty awful shit. ‘Specially the ones who were always itching to call me a dirty terrorist, or are deluded enough to still think Harry’s an alpha an’ it was his pretty little white baby inside Louis...”

“Oh, Zayn,” Jay says, and she comes over to him, because as hard as he’s trying not to be upset, he clearly is. “Why don’t you talk about this with him?”

“We don’t talk like that anymore,” Zayn says, with difficulty.

She wraps an arm around him maternally, and squeezes his shoulder.

“An’ I guess it’s my fault, mostly,” he says. “But, like -- I dunno. He doesn’t need to hear about that shit, either. He gets enough bullshit on his own end.”

“He adores that baby girl,” Jay says softly. “You know that, right? Do you know how much he loves her already, and part of that is because she’s yours?”

“Then why doesn’t he come home?” Zayn demands, moving away from her. “Can’t you _make_ him?”

“No more than I can make him do anything else, and no more than your own mother can make you join back up with the tour,” she says drily.

“But I ain’t pregnant!”

“Look, do you think I don’t want him to come home?” Jay says, sounding incredulous. “Desperately so? Do you know -- this is hard enough for us normally, you boys being gone so long, but like _this?_ When it’s my grandchild? When he’s suffering and working like a dog and everyone in the world is saying these terrible catty things about him?”

Zayn gets up and begins to pace.

“It’s just it would kill him, Zayn, to lose the music and disappoint his fans, to lose everything he worked for. Especially now, when he's so close to the end. It would be just as hard and humiliating for him to do that as it would be for you to put aside your solo plans and go join him. So if you can’t do that for him, don’t expect him to do it for you.”

“Then who’s going to? We’re runnin’ out of fuckin’ time, here, but nobody’ll blink!”

“Why don’t you just blink first? You’re less vulnerable, here. You aren’t pregnant.”

“He’s fucking _Liam!_ ” Zayn shouts in a blind rage. “He’s _got_ a man! And maybe that’s part my fault, maybe I drove ‘em to each other, but what now, huh? Am I supposed to fly out there and break ‘em up, swallow my pride and watch ‘em pine pathetically over each other and have Louis resent me even more, sit around and twiddle me thumbs while they play their concerts, ignore my _other_ ex-boyfriend glarin’ daggers at me everywhere I go and Niall pretendin’ I don’t even exist? What kind of life is that for me?”

“None,” Jay agrees. “It would be awful. But imagine how hard it would be for him to break it off with Liam and come home and wait around at night for you, Zayn! Because you aren't going to abandon work on your album, are you? Or your partying? Tell me if you are. Tell me you wouldn't make my pregnant son sit at home while you're off having fun.”

“I have to be out,” Zayn mutters. “I have to stay in the public eye for stories, promo...”

And he wants to be. He needs the sweaty, drunken catharsis of nightlife now more than ever. It isn't flattering to him, but it's the truth.

“Well, there you go. Look, as inconvenient and unpleasant as it may be, Liam is sick with love for that boy. And you know how Liam is.”

“I wish I didn't,” Zayn whispers.

Jay gives him a deeply sympathetic look.

“Then you know he’ll do anything for him, he’ll put his life aside to take care of him. And I know it’s hard to deal with that when it’s your baby inside him.”

“It’s torture,” he tells her. He wants a cigarette so badly he can't think about much else.

“You know how Louis is, too,” Jay says. “You know what he needs.”

“I can’t give it to him.”

“For the sake of your baby, could you?”

“But what about when the baby comes? What about after that?”

Jay looks at him with a great sadness on her face. He wants to look away, but can’t bring himself to.

“Please don’t make this harder on me,” Zayn begs her. “I’ve realized we won’t make a go of it. It ain’t going to happen. I have feelings for him, as angry as I am with him, I care about your son, I probably will ‘til the day I die. I want to do right by our daughter. But we can’t do this. Not right now. We’re both hurting too much.”

She sighs.

“All I can do goin’ forward is keep Liam’s meddling fuckin’ hands off our kid, keep Louis from pushin’ me away, and make my album something to be proud of to prove them all wrong about me,” he says. “That’s it.”

“Do you want to be a father?” Jay says softly. “Do you want partial custody?”

“I dunno,” Zayn mutters. “I dunno. I don’t even know what that’s like. It sounds so fuckin’ hard. I want some custody, definitely. I want to give it a try.”

He doesn’t even know what he’s saying, in truth. Custody sounds like a nonsense word. It produces great anxiety in him. It reminds him of when he bought his family’s house, and he went in and they started yammering to him about thirty-five year mortgages before he put the money down in cash. _It ain’t real, mate!_ he’d wanted to yell. _Thirty-five years is crazy talk! The world might end before then!_

 

CHICAGO, AUGUST 22, 2015

They have their primary _Made In The AM_ shoot at seven in the morning on the rooftop of an abandoned soda factory in Chicago. They’ve had a hell of a time making a hole in their schedule to get the photographers and stylists out, until finally someone at the label remembered that Louis is five months pregnant and had such a panicked strop at management that they flew people out the next day.

The entire thing is an exercise in torture for Louis. At least with the _Drag Me Down_ video, they’d been able to hide him away in an astronaut suit for a good portion of it, and it was on film, so they’d given up early at trying to make him look like he wasn’t pregnant in the other bits. It had also been shot a month ago, when his bump was less obstreperous.

Liam stands near a klieg light being fussed over as a cool breeze blows over the roof. The sun is only just peeking up over the horizon, and it’s still chilly enough out that he doesn’t mind being in a jacket.

The heavier fabric shifting against him keeps reminding him that his back is a mess of scratches from Louis’ nails the previous night. He keeps looking over at Louis, although Louis would probably prefer him not to out of pride. He stands there, miserable like a wet cat, being man-handled by a very posh young woman named Kee who is endlessly frustrated with styling him. She’s had six different jackets on him so far and keeps shoving at him with her elegantly manicured little hands, trying to zip things that anyone with eyes can tell are just not going to zip.

Liam finally catches his gaze and gestures at one of the male stylists standing in front of him, who has tears on his jeans right below both his arse cheeks.

“Is that for easy access?” he mouths. Louis squints at him, not understanding.

“Access?” he mouths again, and then mimes sticking his hand up one of the tears. Louis starts laughing raucously. Niall turns from where Lou is fixing his hair and looks hopefully to Louis like he often does when he's missed a good joke.

“No moving,” Kee barks.

Louis becomes stationary and blank-faced again. Liam feels for him deeply. This is everything he’s been insecure about for years, magnified and made a hundred times worse, compounded by shame and embarrassment over his current circumstances.

If he were Harry, tall and with limbs like a newborn foal, it might be possible to obscure the fact that he’s pregnant; as it is, Louis shows any fluctuation of weight very obviously. Once he began to show, that was it. He can no more hide it than he could blot out the sun.

“This is hopeless,” Kee shouts over her shoulder to Sven. Louis rolls his eyes.

Sven crosses the roof to meet her, and takes an up-and-down look at Louis. “I agree, so take that off him. It's hideous.”

Kee obligingly replaces the jacket with one that's darker and more flattering. Now everyone is observing this interaction.

“See, this is fine,” Sven says. “Look, management are not going to get what they asked for. They should have made time for me to come out months ago.”

He pats Louis on the back.

“Anyway, this urge to play coy is lost on me,” he says with a jovial smile, with a glance down toward Louis’ middle. “This is a promotional photoshoot. It is not, you know, a shotgun wedding, is it?”

“No, it isn't,” Louis mutters, folding his arms.

After they’ve mercifully left him alone, he catches Liam’s eye and mouths, “I want a cigarette.” Liam looks at him with sympathy.

Louis shakes his head and goes to settle in a chair on the corner of the roof, getting his phone out and scrolling mindlessly. Lou finishes with Niall and makes her way over to him, leaning in and whispering in his ear. He keeps a hand on her shoulder, and after a few moments he smiles and lets out an appreciative snort.

Harry is watching all of this with a sort of melancholy passivity. He finally swallows and glances down, fiddling with a button on his dress shirt. Liam looks at him for a bit too long, and Harry’s gaze darts up at him. He gives Liam a look of gentle rebuke.

Liam knows what he's thinking. _Did you have to stick your dick into this already awful situation?_

He looks away. He knows how hard this has been on Harry. He sees what Louis is too preoccupied to: that Harry can barely even look at Louis anymore, that Harry is still bitterly fond of Zayn, possibly even still in love with him, and this baby is an ever-present knife in his gut.

When the four of them settle into the roof, they break into separate pairs automatically. This is their new normal, Liam supposes. Zayn leaving has put so much pressure on them that they've split in two because of it.

They all still love each other, of course. There have always been pairs and alliances within the band. But they usually overlapped. Now, the division is clear. And how couldn't it be, most especially now that Niall and Harry know about their affair? How can he expect them not to lean on each other, to whisper about this in dark corners?

He shifts away from Louis. He tends to always do that when they’re photographed lately, for the sake of Zayn. He touches him less onstage, too.

“Alright, boys,” Sven says. “Happy faces, but steely. You are real grown-ups, now. You've been through so much this year. It's like you've graduated university, you know? Onto the next… give us a face like you are looking around your first apartment. Like you're so fucking proud of yourself for your independence. That vibe, give me a lot of that.”

They do their best, sitting under the hot lights, listening as Chicago comes to life on the streets below. The crew mutters amongst themselves, making fine adjustments to the set between bursts of shooting and sipping fair-trade coffee. Sven snaps away, giving them the typical photographer patter about how great they are. They're all so used to it by now that none of them seem to even hear him.

After ten minutes or so, Louis pulls his knee up against his chest. He's subtle about this, like he doesn't want anyone to see him do it.

“Brilliant,” Sven mumbles. “Perfect, excellent idea…”

Louis nods, his face remaining blank, his head only moving up and down a fraction of an inch.

 

*

 

When they get back to the hotel, Liam blindly follows Louis into his room without thinking about it. Louis immediately strips out of his street clothes and pulls a t-shirt on, collapsing onto bed in nothing but that and his boxers. Liam looks at him, not really seeing him, absorbed in thought.

“C’mere,” Louis says softly, patting the bed.

Liam comes over and kneels onto the bed, leaning forward so his face is pressed to Louis’ lap. Louis pulls him in, stroking the back of his neck and scratching his scalp. He collapses his weight against the bed. His cheek is pressed to the warm curve of the baby.

After a few minutes of gentle touches, Louis begins to move his hands lower, stroking Liam’s back and then his arse, sliding over his thighs and easing his fingers between them. Liam tenses.

“Oh, are we still in a strop?”

“M’not,” Liam mutters. “I mean, I wasn’t to start with.”

“You’re angry at Zayn,” Louis points out.

Liam lifts his head. “Sorry, are you Zayn?” he says cheekily.

Louis snorts.

Liam reaches out and brushes the backs of his knuckles against Louis’ cheekbone. Louis reaches up, takes his hand and kisses it.

“Be with me,” Louis says throatily. He spreads his legs and moves a pillow so it’s cushioning his lower back. “Come be inside me, Payno, just come be with me…”

Liam wants to, but more than that, he wants to vent his feelings. He knows it isn’t his place to have feelings in this situation, but he’s only human and he’s got them anyway.

He’s mad at Zayn, he supposes, for some unselfish reasons -- that dropping this news with no warning has made things that much harder on Louis, has started people loudly whispering when Louis comes in and out of rooms, that it makes things harder on the band, on Louis’ family, on the fans and even on the crew.

Selfishly, he’s angry because Zayn going public as the dad has made him feel that much more loathsome for fucking Louis, and not only that, it’s shined a light on his traitorous cockroach of a heart that had started to develop fatherly feelings toward the baby.

It reminded him, quite painfully, that this probably ought to be Zayn fucking Louis, that if he would end this relationship right this second that Louis would likely be so humiliated and lonely he’d run home to the father of his baby and try to make a go of it and that would be that.

But who could live with themselves, having made Louis feel humiliated and lonely? How could he live with himself, having lost Louis intentionally, having pushed him away? How exactly does Zayn live with it? Liam loves Louis more and more every day, and grows angrier and less empathetic toward Zayn in parallel.

“I just feel like Zayn cares more about this baby than he does about you,” Liam mutters. “I just hate how he went about putting out this news. That’s all.”

Louis sighs and drops his hands. “Oh, babe.”

He worries at his lip for a few moments, like he’s thinking.

“This baby hasn’t done anything to him,” Louis says, sitting up. Liam sidles up on the pillow next to him, resting the side of his face against Louis’ bicep like a little boy. “It’s not like me and him. This baby is completely innocent. And I suppose he feels -- no, I know he feels -- like there’s a real danger now that I might replace him in her life with you.”

“But you wouldn’t.”

“No, of course not. I’m replacing him in _my_ life with you, not her life. But does it look that different when he’s a thousand miles away, and our baby is still inside of me and a part of me? He has no idea you’re agonizing about this, or that I am. He probably thinks we’re sitting around laughing about what a fool he is. I know he’s probably…”

Louis sighs.

“Sitting around, talking about what a disloyal slut I am. You know? Of course he’d expect I’m doing the reverse.”

“But then maybe you’re being just as paranoid as he is.”

“Maybe I’m a bit sensitive,” Louis mutters.

“Well, he is too.”

“No, I know. Two selfish people with --”

“-- you’re not selfish, Tommo --”

“-- with big fragile egos,” Louis finishes. “What a great pair we made.”

“But you did, didn’t you,” Liam mutters. “Up until he left. I saw you -- I thought you’d just gotten extra close lately, or something… always giggling and whispering and smiling… it’s part of why I was, like, stunned when he left.”

Louis strokes his hair, then.

“I had no idea you had feelings for me back then,” he says kindly. “I’m sorry, Payno.”

“Oh, don’t apologize,” Liam says, laughing. “Christ. I don’t mean to get my fedora on, here.”

“Look,” Louis says. “For him to prioritize people knowin’ he’s hers over my feelings or comfort, I get that, even though it hurts me and makes me angry. But you care more about me than the baby, so you don’t get it. That’s understandable, but you’ve got to let me handle me own shit, here.”

“I am, I am,” Liam assures him. “I’m trying to, like, be mature and just put all my own feelings aside.”

“Well, don’t put them _all_ aside,” Louis murmurs. “That sort of thing makes people go crazy.”

Liam reaches out tentatively and strokes his stomach. Louis places his hand over top and brushes his thumb over Liam’s knuckles, then kisses him on the top of the head.

They spend a moment or two in sweet silence. Liam feels his own breathing even out.

“I also, um,” Louis says, and laughs wearily. “I really do get tired of constantly talking and thinking about this.”

“Fuck, I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s alright. It’s just -- if I seem a bit eager for sex, sometimes, it’s just… I need to get out of me head, is all.”

“Right.”

“And music helps, too.”

Liam kisses up his neck and over his jaw. Louis turns to him, smiling, and they kiss on the mouth.

 

LONDON, SEPTEMBER 13, 2015

Zayn regrets punching Liam before he even does it.

He knew in his gut when he left the car that he wouldn't make it off Louis’ property without laying hands on Liam and really making it count. The alpha in him took over, and he let it.

The regret only began to sting when he had to face an enraged Louis, who Zayn could barely bring himself to be angry with in return. He knelt in front of him with his throbbing bruised hand and looked at Louis, so shocked and upset with him, and felt sincerely chagrined for the first time in a while.

He keeps thinking one day he'll wake and it will have fully sunken in that Liam is fucking him, one day he'll wake up and it won't hurt anymore. That day never seems to come. He looks at Louis and he thinks of all the ways they've hurt each other, all the ways they continue to, but in his body he feels the yank of biology.

Zayn sees Louis, now, and in furious flashing neon he also sees BABY, he sees FAMILY. What's more important to the two of them than family? The Yorkshire boys who only ever wanted to buy their mums a house?

It hurts, too, that Louis was even tender with him in his anger, that Louis let Zayn touch his hands and kiss him and said to him in that sweet voice, “Text me,” that his initial threats of withholding custody blew over into genuine concern within a single minute.

Zayn almost wishes it would be the opposite. He wishes they could just thoroughly and finally alienate each other. Not blow up and mouth off in pride, then gently reconcile and share bittersweetly lovey moments of excitement over the baby.

It's too late for him and Liam, of course. The punch was just a physical expression of the vow Zayn has made and so far left unspoken, which is to never trust Liam again. He thinks he doesn't have to say it, now. Liam got the message loud and clear with his face.

Zayn goes out to drink that night. His hand hurts like mad, but he'd rather drink and be amongst people than take opiates and be in his house alone.

He ends up curled in the corner of the VIP lounge, nursing a vodka soda and chit-chatting with various people who walk by him without inviting any of them to join him. He doesn’t watch company, he wants to watch the dance floor from afar and feel sorry for himself.

At around midnight he realizes there are a lot of models here. This has only just occurred to him when one approaches.

“Hi,” she says. It’s a Hadid sister. The blonde one. He’s met her before, somewhere. With Kendall? Yes, with Harry and Kendall. Right after he'd gotten engaged to Pez, so Harry had invited Zayn out just to make him watch him flirt with Kendall all night. He’d been absorbed by that, and hadn’t paid much attention to… Gigi?

Zayn squints at her.

“Gigi,” she supplies, clarifying his drunken thought for him.

“Right, sorry,” he says, and sticks a hand out. Gigi laughs and shakes it.

“So, first things first… you’re alone, and you look, like, super sad,” she says, taking a seat next to him without being invited to. Zayn wants to protest, but she’s gorgeous.

“My life’s sort of a mess,” he mutters. “I’m sure you know.”

“Isn’t that the awkward thing about being famous?” she says to him. She has her elbows braced on her knees, a curtain of hair falling past the other side of her face as she peers at him with a crooked smile. She seems intrigued by him. Zayn wants to tell her that he’s a very sad and boring little man these days.

“Everyone knows your shit,” Gigi says. “We all know each other’s shit. Is it weirder to pretend not to, or to launch right into it?”

“Probably weirder to pretend not to.”

“I’m so glad you said that.” She grins at him. “I hate the other way.”

“I don’t know much about you, I’m sorry,” Zayn says.

"Aww, sure you do."

He shakes his head. "I mean, the basics. You and your sister..."

"Right..."

She observes him, her lips tilted upward. 

"I guess we've sort of got some things in common," Zayn says softly. He's trying to charm her without even meaning to. It's like a reflex for him. "Tryin' to make names on our own."

"I'd agree with that."

Emboldened, he says, “I know you’re an alpha.”

Gigi clears her throat and sits closer to him, although not by much. She picks up his cigarettes and lights one. Their knees brush.

“Do you prefer that? I know your ex was one,” she says, and blows out some smoke. “I’m not being forward, this is purely academic.”

“In women,” Zayn says. “Like an alpha woman. Like an omega bloke.”

Gigi nods. “Like Louis?”

His hand throbs. “I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Sorry.”

“Nothin’ to apologize for.”

They fall quiet.

“Why’re you in London?” he says, looking over at her.

She smiles. “London fashion week?”

“Right,” Zayn mutters. “I’m so out of the loop right now.”

“Why’s that?”

Zayn sighs and sits up, drawing closer to her so he can speak frankly without being overheard.

They end up talking for more than an hour. Zayn isn’t worried that she’s going to blab, since he’s got plenty of dirt on Kendall, so he tells her that Louis is dating someone they both used to be close to and that it’s eating him up inside. She’s appropriately appalled in only the way another alpha would be. He appreciates that.

He feels comfortable with her, and her interest in him, which is sincere but benign. She doesn’t want to gawk at the road accident of his life. She’s clearly been interested in him for a while before this, and it’s more like the road accident of his life gave her a reason and the confidence to approach him.

Zayn takes her back to his place. They snog for a long time on the couch. He’s afraid of not being able to get it up, and then when he gets hard snogging her and groping one of her breasts under her lacy bralette, he’s afraid he won’t stay that way. It isn’t until they’ve been kissing for more than an hour and he hasn’t lost his erection that he finally begins fumbling with his jeans and looking for a condom.

When he gets his cock out, Gigi grabs him by the hair on the back of his neck and maneuvers them so that she’s on top. She proceeds to ride him until he hasn’t got a thought left in his head and is a groaning, trembling mess underneath her.

She beckons him to eat her out and he wordlessly complies, so relieved to find himself ordered around by someone. He licks at her until she’s come twice and is duly satisfied. Zayn circles his arms around her and they kiss again. She giggles.

“Okay, so, I didn’t really think that would happen,” she says. “I was kind of just hoping to get your number and talk a little.”

He laughs wearily. “You found me at a properly weird time in my life.”

“Isn’t that _Fight Club_?” Gigi says. “But you, like, made it British.”

“Dunno,” Zayn says.

He watched _Fight Club_ ages ago with Louis in the Mystery Machine. He barely remembers it; they’d been stoned out of their minds and talked through the entire thing.

They fall into a peaceable quiet. Orgasm has whited out Zayn’s mind, for the most part. He trails his fingers slowly over her lightly freckled forearm.

 

DUBLIN, OCTOBER 19, 2015

As soon as the door shuts behind Louis and Zayn, Niall mutters, “Jesus. I still can’t believe he punched you in the fuckin’ _face_ , Liam."

"Niall," Harry intones, cutting his eyes at him. His face is pale and drawn from having seen Zayn in person for the first time since he left.

Niall sighs and spreads his hands. "I'm just saying."

"He probably heard that, is what I meant," Harry mutters.

"What -- you think he's gonna come back in and hit Liam some more to get back at me?"

"That isn't funny."

Liam stares at his hands. His heart is hammering away sickly in his chest.

"Let's just move on," he says.

"Not much to talk about without Louis, is there?" Niall says, glancing between them. "Sorta down to him to say what he can do to help us out."

"Nothing," Harry says sharply. "He can't do anything. Would you really expect him to? The AMAs aren't happening. Nothing is happening. He'll be eight months pregnant. The tour ends, and it's the three of us for a while, and that's it."

He gets up and shoves his chair back. It scrapes on the linoleum. He goes over to the coffee table and starts fixing himself a cup of tea.

Niall glances at Liam, who's picking at one of his fingernails and trying not to think about Zayn and Louis together, what they're talking about, if Louis is upset, if they're discussing him, if they're touching...

"Liam," Niall says.

"Mmm," Liam says. "Sorry. Um. I think Harry's right, honestly. I think we've just got to accept we're going to be down two for all of this promo."

"Christ," Niall says, burying his face in his hands.

"I'm not exactly happy about it," Liam says lightly.

Harry returns to them with his Keurig tea. It's a mark of how bad a mood he's in that he's willing to drink Keurig tea.

"I can't believe Sam even let him in t' hotel," Niall says. "He _assaulted_ you."

"I don't want to talk about it," Liam says. His face is growing hot. "Was he supposed to bar the door against him? He's the father of Louis' baby."

Harry's expression sours. He sips his tea.

"Can we talk about Mexico?" Liam begs them. "Please?"

"There was a _bruise_ on your jaw," Niall points out. "For a week."

"I deserved it!" Liam cries insanely. "Look, Mexico City!" He flings down the corresponding printed-out itinerary. 

"Maybe this meeting should just... end," Harry says, not making eye contact with anyone. "I don't think we're getting anything done."

"Not to any fault of mine, is it?" Liam snaps.

"Nope," Harry says, sliding his chair back and standing. "Think you can blame your boyfriend for this one."

"Harry, _please_ ," Liam begs, desperate to maintain some semblance of teamwork.

"Look..." Harry says, and looks at Liam kindly. "Just let me go, alright? I just want to be alone. I don't mean to be stroppy and rude. Just let me go."

He strides away. The door shuts behind him.

"Think that was my fault," Niall mutters. "I pressed the issue."

"Yeah, you did," Liam says unpleasantly.

"Look, it's just we're gettin' to the end, here," Niall says. "Tensions are high. And I worry about Louis, alone with that prick, is all."

"Louis holds his own."

"Keep hold of him," Niall says, sternly. Liam looks up and meets his eyes. "Keep hold of him tight."

Wearily, Liam nods. "I'm trying," he says.

Niall clears his throat and gets up. "I ought to talk to Harold," he says quietly, and leaves the room.

 

*

 

It hadn’t occurred to Zayn that Louis has probably been thinking about the possibility of raising this baby all alone ever since he got pregnant. He has gotten this idea so fixed in his head of Louis and Liam as a team, and Louis pushing him away, that he had gone down a road of self-pity and assumed all was lost already.

After Louis shouts at him in the hall, after he says, _I'll be there weekdays, doin’ most of the work. You get her alone on weekends, no one else there,_ Zayn feels a positive shift in his brain. It’s a feeling of relief that’s endemic to anxiety, like -- _oh, I’d got reality mixed up with me own paranoia, again._

His and Louis’ relationship has been so intertwined with this baby in his head, because their relationship culminated in this baby, and because this baby is still inside of Louis, so naturally he assumed Liam would threaten that.

But she exists separately from Louis, or she soon will. He can have her _alone_. This is a joyous revelation to Zayn. Entire weekends, all alone, no Liam, no Louis. He can give her his side of things, his take on the world. He can take her to see plays and concerts and on long car trips. Maybe she’ll even be more like him than she is like Louis.

And it finally occurs to Zayn the thing that Louis has probably been worrying over for months: he and Liam might not last.

He feels terrible for being glad about this possibility. He feels even worse for actively wanting it. It takes him thinking, _I don’t want to root for Louis to be a single dad_ , and then, a beat after, _Well,_ I’m _going to be a single dad_ , for his guilt to ebb.

Joan is friendly to him as usual. Even Louis is kinder toward him, after all their fighting and crying in the hall. He looks pretty after he cries, his nose and cheeks pink and his eyes a crisper blue.

He’s really very pregnant now. It's become the most obvious thing about him. Looking at him makes Zayn want to talk more softly and walk more quietly. And he seems full-bodily and entirely tired, like it’s gotten into his bones. Seeing him like that frustrates Zayn; he clearly should have come home from the tour ages ago.

When they've settled onto the bed and Joan is turning the sonogram on, Zayn reaches over and takes Louis’ hand in his.

Louis looks at him in surprise and then smiles, lacing their fingers more tightly.

“Fair warning,” he says, “sweaty palms.”

“It is a bit hot in here,” Joan confirms.

“I don’t mind,” Zayn says, because he doesn’t. He leans in closer, pressing against Louis, observing the sonogram intently.

Louis takes in a breath and glances at Zayn’s face. A tiny frisson passes between them. Zayn meets his eyes.

“Feels like it’s even realer, lately,” Louis murmurs. “I feel her all the time, now.”

Zayn presses a hand to his middle, again, where he felt the kicks before. Joan sets the sonogram wand down to give him more room.

“Sorry,” he says to her.

“No, no, go ahead.”

“The last I felt her was here,” Louis says, and takes his hand to direct it. For a long moment, they’re dead silent, the only sound being their soft breathing as they wait for life to make itself apparent.

Louis slides down against the bed with clumsy awkwardness. He seems to be growing larger faster than his spatial awareness can keep up. “Sometimes it helps if I’m flat on me -- oh, shit. Here, mate, right there,” he says, and moves Zayn’s hand to the left side, under his ribs.

Zayn lays down next to him and waits. Soon, he feels a hard jab against his hand, just like he felt before. He removes his hand and sees another jab stand out against Louis’ skin. He laughs breathlessly.

“Sick… That must be so fuckin’ weird to feel...”

“I’ve got used to it,” Louis says, looking at him with a contented smile. “You look dead excited.”

“I’m speechless, like,” Zayn says. “It's so cool.”

They’re lying very close, now, sprawled across the bed like the lovers they once were. Zayn aches for the memory of his body. He wonders if there’s any possibility that Louis is aching in turn. They keep making accidental eye contact. Zayn is very warm; from the leather, the room, the heat of Louis’ body and their baby under his hand.

Joan sneezes. It’s clear she was trying to hold it in. They both start, like they’ve been caught at something.

Zayn strokes his thumb over Louis’ belly. He’s glad, in a bizarre way, that Louis has Liam, because the work on his album is getting solidly underway now. He’s laying down tracks nearly every day, getting into peak flow and coming home at two or three. If he had Louis at home, heavily pregnant and hot-tempered Louis, Zayn would likely be caught in a constant tug-o-war of guilt and defensiveness. Jay was right. At least someone more patient and less busy than Zayn is pampering and tending to him, as painful as it is to know about.

He’s been a hypocrite, he’s aware. He isn't sure what he wants Liam to do -- be even more of a doormat than normal and take care of Louis in the way of a butler, not a boyfriend? Help Louis through his pregnancy, but ignore the baby? It isn’t fair, what he wants. It isn’t fair what they’ve done to him, either. It isn’t fair what Louis is going through. None of this is fair, or makes any sense.

At least he’s got his music, and Gigi, and for the moment, Louis is being nice to him and smiling at him and they’re just agreeably chuffed about the baby. Today is alright. Zayn doesn’t take alright for granted anymore.

“Here,” Louis says, and rolls over on his side to face Zayn. He reaches behind himself to Joan, who laughs and then hands him the sonogram wand. Louis hands it to Zayn.

“Go for it,” he says, raising his shirt up the rest of the way again.

Zayn looks to him in surprise. “Um, alright,” he says.

He takes the wand and begins to move it over Louis’ belly. It’s a harder job than it looks; he fucks it up more often than not. Louis is turned away from the monitor, and just observes Zayn, watching his face as he takes in all possible views of their daughter. Zayn reaches out after a while and takes his hand again. Louis squeezes his in return.

“I love hearin’ her heartbeat,” Zayn remarks, in a reverent voice.

Louis nods with vigor. “Me too,” he says happily. “That’s my favorite bit.”

 

*

 

They go for a walk in the hotel courtyard after Louis mentions he wants to stretch his legs. He ends up leaning against a pillar because his back hurts, jealously eyeing the pack of cigarettes peeking from Zayn's breast pocket.

“Be glad you've got an excuse to quit,” Zayn says to him.

“Aye, well, you've got one too,” Louis says, arching an eyebrow. “Not planning to smoke in our baby's face, are you?”

“She can handle a little smoke,” Zayn jokes. “If she's really ours, y’know.”

Louis laughs hard at this, then shifts against the pillar and adopts a somewhat unhappy expression.

“What's up?” Zayn says, scuffing his trainers against the marble floor. Nearby to them, a fountain burbles very loudly, somewhat muting their conversation.

“Nothin’,” Louis says. “Did I say anything?”

“Just look narky.”

Louis huffs out a laugh.

“I am,” he says. “Not about anything in particular. I'm really fuckin’ sick of performing, I s’pose. We've got one tomorrow. I'm practically being propped up at this point, it's embarrassing.”

“You're doing what you wanted to,” Zayn points out, somewhat bitterly.

“I know, I know. I just hate being _this_ pregnant in front of thousands of people,” Louis mutters, smoothing his hands over his tee, outlining the crisp roundness of his middle. “It feels… I dunno. Somethin’ that ought to be sort of private between you and me, but everyone in the world knows our business. And they see me like this, and reckon it's their right to speculate.”

Zayn has a flash of guilt over everything he's confided in Gigi. He looks at Louis, who could not be more different than her, and yet still commands such attention from his dick and his heart. He's so curvy right now, in the exact way Zayn likes, and boyishly handsome -- his hair shining, his cheeks pink. 

“Plus, I did sort of enjoy being like, a teen heartthrob,” Louis says drily. “For as long as that lasted. Dunno how many girls are looking at me that way these days, if any.”

“Did I ever say sorry for getting you pregnant?” Zayn says softly.

Louis meets his eyes and gives him a wry smile. He shifts again on the pillar, his hips moving in that sensual way he has.

“Did I ever ask you to?”

Zayn's cock twitches.

 

*

 

Before he leaves, Zayn sees Liam and Louis together.

He's popped into an alley to smoke before he heads back to the airport, and is leaning against the wall, obscured by a vent. They come out of another door down the alley, giggling. They must have stolen away from rehearsal.

It occurs to Zayn that he's never seen them like this. He's barely even seen them interact, since he found out. He flattens against the wall, peeking at them through the thin space where the vent doesn't connect.

Liam moves Louis up against the door, big hands on his ribs, whispering something to him. Louis laughs loudly and tips his chin up, a familiar flirty glint in his eye. Liam presses up against him, flat stomach to convex one, and leans in to kiss him.

Zayn’s heart leaps into his throat. Liam is sucking at Louis’ bottom lip the way he likes. Louis is making the sounds he used to make for Zayn.

His blood begins to boil. He could go over there. He could start another fight with Liam. Liam would probably fight him back this time, and Zayn would probably lose, but maybe he'd get one more good hit in on him.

Then, Zayn knows, Louis would again become enraged, he'd browbeat and threaten him. He'd would feel even sorrier for Liam and more alienated from Zayn. And he'd get his heart pounding and his whole body engaged with adrenaline, putting the chemical equivalent of jumper cables to their growing baby. It isn't worth it.

He wonders idly if they still fuck, or if it's too uncomfortable for Louis now. He flashes on the thought that Liam probably has no trouble at all getting hard whenever Louis wants him, then flinches and pushes it away immediately, ignoring the stab of insecurity in his chest.

After a quick stolen minute of snogging, they break apart to go back inside. Louis pauses for a moment in the doorway and puts a hand to his belly, like she's kicking him. His lips tilt up. He looks serene.

Zayn aches from watching this. He doesn't know what he wants, but this isn't it. Being a sad creep in an alley isn't it.

He stomps out the cigarette and walks away, toward the side of the hotel so he can call his car around. He'll go home and ring his supermodel girlfriend, he'll keep grinding on his album.

 

LONDON, OCTOBER 20, 2015

His guitarist Arianna offers to pick him up from the airport so she can take him straight to the studio. Zayn says sure, even though he isn't particularly in the mood to record. He has a panicky obsession with his album lately, as if it's come to represent his ability to succeed as an independent adult. If his album flops and is a pile of shit, he'll prove everyone right, they'll all laugh at him.

His worst fear is that Harry will go solo immediately after this hiatus begins and grind out a _FutureSex/LoveSounds_ -level work of genius that, if Zayn doesn't crush it his first time out, will make his music look like the pathetic infantile ramblings of a party boy in comparison. He just doesn't have the work ethic that Harry has, almost no one at their level of fame does. Harry's somehow immune to the lotus-eating that fame tempts you with, the endless merry-go-round of sex, drugs and fawning adoration.

And he hasn't got a baby on the way. He's got no distractions. Zayn can't let his brilliant ex-boyfriend trounce him, it would hurt far too much.

Arianna drives a vintage American muscle car, a 1968 Pontiac that makes her stand out immediately in a sea of Ford Fiestas and Focuses. Security escorts him to her and then gets in the Escalade he left at Heathrow, trailing them as they pull out.

“So how was it?” Arianna says, fiddling with the radio.

Zayn leans back in his seat. It's one of those days that's perfect for being picked up or dropped off at the airport: grey, drizzling, the streets full of yellow anoraks and black umbrellas. Houses and businesses up and down the streets of London are starting to decorate for Halloween. Zayn remembers with a start that the boys’ last concert is the same day. After that, Louis comes home.

“It was alright,” he murmurs, playing with a ring he's got on, slipping it on and off his finger. “How's the sessions coming?”

“Good! I'm excited for you to hear what we recorded while you were gone.” She drums on the steering wheel. “So, like -- I don't want to pry, it's just we're kind of wondering how this is going to affect things. The baby's due when?”

“January.”

“Are you going to want to delay the album, at all?”

“No.”

Arianna seems relieved, but gives him a searching look. “You won't take time off after it’s born?”

“I mean, we'll see,” Zayn says, shrugging. He hates being needled about this. He doesn't know what his plans are; his brain is a messy fog of hurt feelings, fear and mixed desires. “If I've got her weekends, then I won't be recordin’ weekends, like. But I wasn't gonna start takin’ her right away. I've still got work to do on me place here.”

“Okay, I was just checking.”

“Sorry I don't have a firm answer.”

“No, you're good, you're good,” she says quickly, and goes to the radio again as if to have something to do.

The oldies station that she settles on spins a ballad with a female vocalist. Zayn doesn't pay attention at first, but something about her melancholy voice stirs the wounded parts of his heart.

“Who is this?” he says softly.

“The Carpenters? I love them.”

“What's this song?”

“Superstar.”

Zayn sits back in his seat. As the song goes on and the wailing oboe fades into strings, an ache in his chest develops. His eyes grow hot. Next to him, Arianna talks as they trundle through rainy London, saying something about how the woman who's singing died of an eating disorder.

Zayn doesn't hear her very well. He's absorbed in the sound of the woman’s sadness, and the feel of his own. He's breathless with self-pity.

_Don't you remember, you told me you loved me baby…_

He can't help but think of Louis. He thinks of their last night together, in Dubai, right after their concert there. He'd eaten Louis’ arse as they splayed across his bed in the silk sheets, Louis gripping the bedspread, the brilliant nighttime glow of the city burning in Zayn’s eyes even when he closed them. Louis had clung to him after, and whispered Zayn’s name against his chest. Zayn had held him tight, sick with the knowledge that he was going to abandon him.

He had pressed his nose to Louis’ hairline, dragging in the smell of him. Tom Ford cologne, tea tree oil shampoo, Lever soap, and the scent under all that, maybe one he was only aware of because of their intimacy. A sweet, sharp smell, like cloves, or when you blow out a candle, or break open a courgette.

Zayn wants Louis to come back. He does, so badly, but isn't Jay right? He wouldn't turn his life upside down for Louis, would he? As soon as he got him back, he'd resent Louis for making a family man out of him, for introducing an element of guilt to his partying and his frantic work on his record. For being needy and pregnant and no longer his fun partner in crime but now something else, a nagging and grounding force holding him down.

He wants what they _had_ back. He doesn't know what else he wants.

“You good?” Arianna says.

The song has ended.

“Great,” Zayn says, and rolls down the window. Rain patters him in the face and on his jacket sleeve. “Mind if I smoke?”

“No, go ahead.”

 

*

 

Gigi is visiting him for the weekend, and she’s there when he gets back to the house, smiling and brandishing a bottle of red wine. They crack it open, drink half and then have lazy sex on the couch. Zayn buries his hands in her hair while they fuck. He loves it, the soft golden weight of it in his hands, how much of it there is.

Later he makes dinner, and she stands behind him, soft hips pressed to his back, murmuring little nothings in his ear as he cooks.

At one point Gigi leaves his side to go take a phone call, and he’s left the food to simmer, so he settles onto a barstool next to the island and looks at Twitter.

Things have gotten worse again, lately, maybe because the tour is close to finishing up. He’s been ducking the spotlight, dropping out of interviews last minute, and his own fans are frustrated and desperate for news. An awful handful of them are lashing out at Louis, accusing him of ruining Zayn’s solo career on purpose, of poking holes in condoms, of sabotage. Louis’ fans are anxious about the hiatus, meanwhile, and some lash back out at Zayn turn. Zayn gets _deadbeat, traitor, loser, cheater, liar, asshole._ Louis gets _petty, jealous, control freak, whore, trashy, rat._ He’s the shifty criminal from the wrong side of the tracks and Louis gets to be the common slut from the wrong side of the tracks; there's no winning for either of them.

For every two hundred supportive tweets, there’s one awful one, and one is all it takes to crash Zayn’s mood against the rocks. The support buoys him up and it makes it possible to do this job and be this person, but every dribble of negativity makes him crazier and crazier. He feels it like a physical illness coming on, like when he’s about to catch a cold and there’s a little scratch at the back of his throat. Being so seen by so many people is a form of slow-acting torture for him.

Gigi comes back, still all smiles. He clicks his screen off and sets his phone aside, but she sees the change in him. She kisses his neck and strokes his hair and tries to make him smile, too. Zayn does, but it’s listless, and she sees that.

“What’s wrong?” she finally says.

Zayn scratches the stubble he’s growing out. “Um,” he mutters. “Twitter.”

She pouts at him. “Don’t look at Twitter, babe.”

“I try not to,” he says with a laugh.

Gigi tends to the food, checking on it and turning the heat down. “This smells great,” she says, and comes back over to where he’s slumped on the island, his chin resting on his arms, which in turn rest on the marble. She strokes his back under his shirt.

“I wanted to ask you something,” she says. “Just because of that thing you told me before. I promise I’m not trying to be insulting. I just want to know for sure.”

Zayn’s heart jumps into his throat. “Alright,” he says.

“Um, just -- are you sure the baby’s yours?”

“Oh, Gigi,” he groans, putting his face in his hands. “Not you, love, not _you_ …”

“I promise I don’t have anything against Louis,” she says, rubbing him more insistently, her hands warm against his back, except for her rings. “I promise.”

“Except that you’re datin’ me, and ‘e’s having my baby?”

“That doesn’t bother me! It’s kinda _weird_ , yeah, but it doesn’t bother me --”

“I’m sure it’s mine,” Zayn mutters. “First of all, I trust him. Second, I didn’t use rubbers with ‘im a few times. If you look at the timeline of it, we fucked raw right around when he conceived. Besides the fact that if it was anyone else in the world, he’d probably be relieved, like. I was the worst possible option.”

Gigi drops her hands and sighs.

“You asked.”

“I didn’t mean to bring hard feelings up.”

“Oh, they’re up.”

“You act so weird when you come back from seeing him, or when you talk to him,” Gigi says, coming around the side of the island to try and look him in the eye. He stares at his hands. “It’s like you wish I wasn’t here.”

“No, it ain’t that, love, not at all.”

He likes having her here, he just wants to be left alone. He isn’t sure how that’s supposed to work, either. Every time he interacts with Louis it’s like his brain gets scrambled, and he has to slowly and laboriously tune it back to normal.

“Well, can I _help_?”

“No, love.”

The person he really ever wants to talk about this with is Liam, the only person who knows both him and Louis like the back of his own hand. That he can’t do this anymore is a source of constant grief for him.

“You know I’m going to have a baby soon,” Zayn says. “It won’t be the same, you and me. Least of our problems is gonna be I won't have near as much free time, anymore. And travelin' to the states is going to be a bitch.”

“I’ve known that,” she exclaims. “I knew what I was getting into with you. I’ve liked you for so long, I don’t mind… we all have baggage, you know?”

Zayn knows she doesn’t get the scope of it. How could she? She’s twenty-one, and this is entirely new territory for her. She doesn’t see what’s on the horizon for them. He looks at her face, angelic in its beauty, and feels like a rotten bastard for bringing her into this. Even though she wanted it.

“I’m glad I have you,” he says honestly. “You’re keepin’ me sane, like.”

It might be the wrong thing to say. She seems flattered initially, and then they both realize at once what an impersonal compliment that is. Gigi has a microexpression of a frown, and then her face smooths back out into that neutral runway model look she often has.

“Your food is probably done,” she says.

Zayn gets up and turns away from her. She leaves the kitchen, and he sighs in relief.

 

BELFAST, OCTOBER 20, 2015

Niall comes into Harry’s room to tune his guitar and talk about nothing. Harry usually enjoys these quiet moments with him,  but he had sort of wanted to be alone and listen to Stevie Nicks’ entire discography. He got in a hole earlier by listening to Landslide, and having a cry over Zayn and the maybe-end of the band. Then he’d listened to Edge of Seventeen and dug himself deeper by remembering all of the nicer moments in his relationship with Zayn, the sweet things they had done for each other and said to each other. He had thought about texting Nick, _Is Zayn the Lindsey to my Stevie_? but figures Nick would take the piss out of him for the rest of his life if he actually said that.

Anyway, Stevie and Lindsey still see each other all the time, he’d realized bitterly. They still get on. Lindsey still loves her, in a way.

So in lieu of calling Gemma, who’s at work, he’d told Niall to come on over. They talk about nothing and everything. Niall has some recent complaints about Greg, and Harry lets him vent, offering sympathy and commentary. He likes losing himself in someone else’s problems.

Niall caps off his honesty like he usually does, with a dismissive comment aimed at himself. This time: “It’s fuckin’ stupid, I really need to stop expectin’ him to change.”

Harry shakes his head, then reaches out and strokes his arm.

“You’re not stupid for expecting your love to get returned properly,” Harry murmurs. “You’re not stupid for wanting to be treated as well as you treat him.”

“But I ought to be over it by now,” Niall says, smiling tersely.

“Just for your own good, though. Not because you’re in the wrong for being hurt.”

“Alright, Haz. Thanks.”

He strums his guitar for a few minutes, and they lie there in silence, Harry’s hands clasped over his stomach as he watches Niall’s fingers work.

“I know we’ve talked about this,” Harry says, “but d’you just… does it still sort of bother you that Liam and Louis are together?”

Niall shakes his head and removes his pick from his mouth. “Don’t bother me so much as it makes me nervous.”

“I mean, that too.”

“I understand why it happened,” Niall says. “Sort of. But it’s dangerous as all fuck. It’s not like they can even break up, now.”

“Yeah, they can.”

“Nah, even if they ran into serious problems,” Niall says, “they’d carry on. I can’t imagine Liam leavin’ Louis anytime soon. Not ‘til that baby is like, six months old, at least.”

“And what if Louis _wants_ him to leave?”

“Is he gonna go it alone, then?” Niall says, glancing over at Harry. “This is Louis we’re talking about, he doesn’t even like to go to the toilet alone.”

Harry tips his head back and looks at the ceiling. “If they wreck things between them, that’s it. The band’s finished, no reunion.”

“Uch, Christ, I know. I don’t want it to end like that.”

“I don’t either...”

“You think they’re solid?”

“I dunno,” Harry mutters. “I don’t know anything. I think things, and then I get the rug pulled out from under me, every time.”

“What if Louis pops out this kid, an’ then he comes over all funny and decides he wants Zayn back?” Niall says, with some hesitation in his voice.

Harry’s cheeks burn. “That won’t happen.”

“It might. Think about it, ay, he’s stuck inside lookin’ at a baby all day who looks like Zayn, thinkin’ about when him and Zayn were together, feelin’ all vulnerable and insecure…”

“I don’t think he will,” Harry says, with creeping desperation.

“I think you’ve got to face up to the fact that it’s still on the table, lad. I reckon Zayn’d take him up on it, too... seein' how he's gone all _Jessie's Girl_ on Liam...”

Harry is stricken by the unfairness of all of this.

“Fine, then it happens,” he says. “Then they get back together. I can’t live in fear of that. It isn’t even my business. They ought to do what’s best for their baby, band aside, other people’s feelings aside.”

Niall reaches out and squeezes Harry’s shoulder. When Harry doesn’t react, Niall sets his guitar on the floor and lies next to him on the bed.

“In ten years, we won’t care about any of this anymore,” Niall says. “Y’know?”

“I know,” Harry says, his voice soft.

 

MEXICO CITY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015

Liam is miserable being away from Louis, and everyone can tell.

He limps through their promo like a wounded stray dog, reciting his canned answers word for word, but sounding scatter-brained and distant as he does. He knows he’s letting down Harry and Niall, who are themselves exhausted and are relying on him to mostly take up the massive slack that Louis and Zayn have left.

It’s alright that they expect that, he’s the slack man, but he feels he’s allowed to be distracted, considering the circumstances. And of course, no one else even knows that he’s been yanked away from his boyfriend. Every reporter that mentions Louis to him is blissfully unaware of this.

One asks, “Do you think Zayn and Louis will get back together because of the baby?”, and Harry and Niall share a very subtle uneasy glance that indicates to Liam they’re under the impression they’d have to have him committed if this happened.

“You know, I don’t know, but I don’t think so,” he says, smiling placidly.

“I’d be surprised,” Harry says drily.

By the time they get to Mexico, most of the good music questions have been done to death. And without Louis there, the discussions about writing are that much more dry, because Liam has no one to play off of. Harry and Niall’s banter is less showy and more goofily esoteric than his and Louis’, so they end up just doing cute and uninformative bits with each other while Liam blearily rambles on about the finer points of the record.

In every presser and every interview, the second they exhaust the musical aspect, the press immediately sink their teeth into the scandalous year the band has had and don’t let go. Mexico is no different.

“Are the four of you going to make any more joint appearances before your hiatus begins?” a young woman yells.

“Um,” Niall says. “Probably not, no. I don’t see why we would?”

“Is Louis avoiding the public eye?” she says.

“No, he’s just sleepy,” Liam says, which gets some chuckles.

“Where is Zayn?” someone else calls out.

“I reckon we’ve been answerin’ that question for six years,” Niall says. “We’ve literally been answerin’ that since X-Factor, haven’t we?”

“Since before we were even a band, that’s been a question,” Harry says, laughing.

Liam laughs, too, but glances sideways at them to indicate his displeasure with their dodging. Niall grimaces apologetically at him.

“He’s usually between LA and London, I think,” Liam says.

“How much does he see Louis?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Do you two still talk?”

“Yes,” he lies smoothly.

There’s a moment of quiet as the reporter writes this down and the audience quietly murmurs amongst themselves, workshopping questions. The constant combination of flash and shutter click increases for a moment, and then levels off.

“Is it hard, being down by two?” someone in the front row asks.

“Yeah, but the tour’s ended, so it isn’t quite as bad,” Liam says, smiling. “Mostly fun stuff now. And then we get to go home to our families, so…”

“Louis is still involved,” Niall says. “He just texted me this mornin’ making fun of a goof-up I made yesterday.”

They all nod, even though _still involved_ is overstating things. Louis is so weary of dealing with his rapidly soured public image that he’s paying their promo as little mind as he possibly can. Even Liam isn’t hearing from him as much as he’d like; he’d called Jay the other day, concerned, and she’d assured him that since he left, Louis essentially sleeps all day.

“Just let him recover, love,” she’d said. “It’s probably good for you two to have a bit of time apart right now.”

When Liam gets back to his hotel room, he collapses onto his bed in his clothes, kicking his shoes off. He does some quick time zone math to see if he can get away with calling Louis. It’s only eight at night in London, so he FaceTimes him.

Louis takes a while to pick up. When he finally does, he looks like he’s lying sideways across his couch.

“Hi,” he says. “Presser over?”

Liam yawns and nods. “Are we both slumped, right now?”

“I actually just woke up,” Louis says, laughing. “I’ve been napping and watching the Food Network.”

“What’s on?”

“When I went to sleep it was Chopped, now it’s… Chopped Junior. And up next, more Chopped.”

“I'm having deja vu,” Liam says. “I swear we've had this exact conversation before, like a year ago on the last tour break.”

“We probably did, honestly.”

“The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Liam recites punchily.

Louis laughs. “Y’know, I wish that was an accurate phrase, at all,” he says. “I sort of get it, I guess. Like, people and circumstances’ll come in and out of your life, and they’ll all be a bit shit in the same ways?”

Liam pouts. “D’you have to go emo kid on me? I always thought it was cheerful!”

“ _Cheerful?_ Alright then, Payno.”

“Well, like -- things change, but they don’t change _that_ much? I dunno. Now you’re making me overthink this and get sad.”

“Don’t be sad,” Louis says, his voice soft and sweet. “Hey... I miss you.”

Liam’s heart jumps. “Do you?” he says. “I thought you’d gotten tired of me.”

“Oh, no, babe. Not you. Just tired in general, is all.”

Liam smiles at him, and Louis smiles back.

“I miss you fussing over me,” Louis says. “Fussing over the baby suitcase. Which I’ve added nothing to on me own, by the way. Oli keeps sneaking joints in there whenever he comes over. I told him he’s going to get me arrested. He was like, you ought to light up right after you give birth, see who stops you.”

Liam chuckles. “I think, you know, the doctors?”

“Aye, that’s what I told him.”

“At the very least it’s a fire hazard.”

“‘Sactly.”

They fall quiet for a little while, like they sometimes do. Liam just likes listening to Louis breathe.

“I’ve had the fake contractions somethin’ awful lately,” Louis says. “I barely felt them ‘til tour ended, now I get them all the time.”

“I wish I was there,” Liam says. “I miss taking care of you. I miss having somebody to cuddle. You’ve got me sort of spoiled.”

“Go cuddle Niall.”

“He'll fart on me.”

“Go cuddle Harry.”

“He’s too narky, lately.”

Louis goes quiet for a moment, his brow creased like he’s thinking. Liam waits.

“Isn’t ‘cos of _me_ , is it?”

“Oh, nah, mate,” Liam says, possibly too quickly. “It’s just -- I mean, sort of. It’s Zayn, really.” He clears his throat. “He's also on a cleanse right now, so…”

Louis smiles crookedly, and without his eyes. “All roads come back to Zayn,” he says.

“Have you seen him since I’ve been gone?”

The smile slides off of Louis’ face. “No,” he says. “He’s very busy with his album, apparently.” It’s clear he tries to keep the hurt out of his voice here, but it isn’t very effective. “I’ve got an appointment next week he’ll be at, though.”

“Oh, alright,” Liam says carefully. “You thought any more about, like…”

“Payno, it’s got to be him in the delivery room,” Louis says, reading his mind. He shifts on the couch and sighs, scowling in annoyance. “Fuck, this sofa’s a piece of shit.”

Liam does not say that it’s actually a very nice sofa and Louis finds every piece of furniture on the earth uncomfortable right now. “Alright, I mean, if that’s what you want.”

“You know it isn’t, and you know I don’t want to talk about this anymore.”

Liam sighs. He needs to just stop talking, but his mouth doesn’t seem to get the message. “I just think you ought to do what’s best for you here --”

“Nope,” Louis says aggrievedly. “Doing what’s best for my daughter, here. That’s parenting, innit?”

“Isn’t it best for her if --”

“We’re not havin’ this conversation again.”

“-- if you’re comfortable when you’re delivering her?”

“Holy fuck, it’s like he doesn’t even hear me speak!” Louis exclaims.

“Louis,” Liam says, pained.

“Look, lad, I’m uncomfortable with him there, I’ll ask him to leave and just do it on me own. Not the end of the world. It ain’t the fuckin’ moon landing, here. Me mum’s done it seven times, I’ve watched people do it, it’s as natural as anythin’ else. I’ll be fine, and you can come in after, punch me in the shoulder and call me champ, or whatever you like.”

“I think that’s Dan’s job,” Liam says, laughing.

Louis cracks a grin.

“Please don’t do that thing,” he says softly. “That thing where, like… you put me first. I know you can’t help it. But you know she’s my priority, right now. I'm puttin’ _her_ first.”

“I know, I know,” Liam assures him. “I’m not trying to -- I care about her so much already, too.” His voice grows emotional, and he coughs. “I want what’s best for her, I promise.”

“It’s just you’re in love with _me_.”

“Right.” Liam smiles weakly. “I can try and stop that, if you want.”

“Nooo, no,” Louis says, smiling. “No.”

Liam finds himself growing sleepy. He sits up. His curtains are completely shut, obscuring the fact that it’s early afternoon, and he’s jetlagged to the gills to boot.

“Come back soon,” Louis says, and he sounds very melancholy, all of a sudden. Liam’s heart squeezes.

“As soon as I can,” Liam says. “Sooner,” he adds nonsensically.

“I love you,” Louis says, sing-songy.

“I love you too, Tommo,” Liam professes.

They hang up and Liam lies there, feeling rather like his heart is about to explode in his chest from his adoration of Louis. It’s a constant physical ache, like he’s fucked up one of his teeth or sprained his wrist.

Liam truly feels crazy from missing him. He doesn’t even care that Louis is cranky and tired all the time now, or that they just spent eight months together. He aches to see him again, feel the warmth of him, hear his laugh.

 

LONDON, NOVEMBER 30, 2015

Zayn doesn't get to leave Los Angeles without rowing with Gigi.

They don’t really row, at least not the way he has with other people, more shouty and quick-tempered people like Louis or Perrie. Gigi is much more mannered. Their fights begin with little wounded jabs she tosses out, until she gets his temper up enough that he explodes, at which point she retreats reproachfully.

This time it’s because he had let slip a few days ago that Liam is the person Louis is screwing, which has given him carte blanche to be more vocally annoyed every time Liam’s traitorous goober face crosses his Twitter feed or his television.

When he’s getting his jacket on to go out to the car, Gigi leans against a wall in the foyer, wearing only a shirt of his and nothing else. This was her gambit to try and make him miss his flight. He’d wanted very badly to stay and have sex, but the doctor’s appointment is set, and he told her so.

“I just feel a little insecure lately,” she tells him. “Can’t you, like, empathize with me, here?”

“I don’t get what I’m doing to make you insecure,” Zayn sighs, sliding his hands into his pockets.

Gigi raises her impeccably groomed eyebrows at him. “Really?”

Annoyed, he waits.

“You’re constantly venting to me about how pissed you are that the guy who’s having your baby is fucking someone else, and you don’t think your girlfriend would be insecure about that?”

“I’m pissed ‘cos Liam and I were really close and I was confidin’ in him things about Louis, and this situation,” Zayn snaps, “and he used that and went behind my fuckin’ back to try and rope _my_ baby into ‘is ready-made family fantasy, is why!”

“ _And_ because now you guys aren't going to get back together,” Gigi exclaims. “Admit it, that’s part of it! I’m not an idiot.”

“I'm not discussin’ this with you,” Zayn says, his face burning. “There's six years of history there that you're not going to get. Tell me I haven't been obsessin’ over you our entire relationship, tell me I'm not good to you, tell me I don't buy you shit and spoil you and write songs about you. Tell me I ain't in Los Angeles with you half my time even though I've got a baby on the way in London and my whole family there --”

“Half the time you're here, you're working on your album!”

“What, you want to date an unemployed loser whose biggest legacy in life is he was in a fuckin’ boyband as a teenager?” Zayn shouts. “Let me go, I'm gonna miss me fuckin’ flight!”

“Fine, go,” Gigi says mulishly. “Go be all sweet with your pregnant ex, and then come home horny and jump on me because you want to fuck him and you can't.”

“Crazy,” Zayn says, putting his hands up and backing away. “That's crazy. You've gone off it, babe. Get your head back on straight. I’ll text when I land, alright?”

“I'm not stupid, Zayn,” she calls to him calmly as he shuts the door behind him.

 

*

 

Zayn’s flight is late anyway, by an hour, so he tells Louis to just meet him at Joan’s office. When he gets there, an elderly receptionist with pince-nez explains to him that Joan has unfortunately been called away to deliver a baby.

“When’ll she be back?” Zayn says, already digging in his pockets for a smoke.

“About an hour.”

“Where can I smoke?”

Pince-nez directs him through the office and to the back, where there’s a small gloomy garden, wet with this morning’s rain and still somewhat green despite the season. Zayn leans against the brick wall, facing an alley, watching businessmen types hurry to and fro on the sidewalk.

Louis pops his head out the door a few minutes later. Zayn regretfully ashes his cigarette.

“Hey,” Louis says, swiping at his fringe as he comes over. Zayn is always shocked, lately, at how very pregnant he is. He’s in a black stretchy tee and a black unzipped hoodie that fall loosely over him, but the baby still engulfs his little frame.

Zayn waves away the lingering smoke as Louis settles against the brick wall next to him, arms folded.

“Didn’t want to wait inside?”

“I hate their chairs,” Louis says. “You’d think an ob-gyn’d, like, have chairs really pregnant people could get comfortable in.”

“If anywhere,” Zayn agrees.

“I’m startin’ to think they don’t exist,” Louis says aggrievedly. “Liam and me mum make fun of me ‘cos I just lie in bed all day lately, but I don’t even give, it feels good.”

Zayn feels a twinge of annoyance at the mention of Liam. “How’s baby?”

“Crushing all me organs as usual,” Louis says, but he pushes himself away from the wall so he can face Zayn, and brings his hands down to his belly.

The baby is active where Zayn’s hands find her, pushing against Louis with knees or possibly elbows. Zayn is amazed that Louis isn’t more annoyed by this. He’d find it unbearable, himself.

“Hi baby,” he says aloud, stroking his thumbs over Louis. “Hey there...”

Louis is smiling fondly at him.

“Can we sit?” he finally says. “I know the grass is wet, but my back’s, like …”

“Yeah, yeah,” Zayn says, and helps him down, as he’s rather off-balance now.

Louis sighs in relief as he sits and shifts against the brick, hands resting on the swell of his stomach.

Zayn’s so used to Louis that he doesn’t often really look at him, but the way his body has changed makes him seem somewhat like a new person. Zayn studies the profile of his nose and the line of his jaw, and wonders what their daughter will look like.

“Are you nervous at all, about deliverin’ her?” he finally says. He’s been wondering this for some time, but it feels more pressing, now that Louis is round in a way that makes him seem like he could go at any moment.

Louis looks down at his hands and smooths them down his shirt, over the baby. After a moment, he nods.

“Scared more than nervous. Don't like to think about it much.”

Zayn is surprised. “Reckon you’re old hat with this, though.”

“What, ‘cos of all the kids I've got?” Louis says, laughing.

“No, just your mum, and ‘er midwifing…”

“Different when it’s you, though,” Louis murmurs. “It’s mostly the pain… I don’t want it to hurt, and I know it does. Even if it ain't too bad during, like, after -- I don’t -- I dunno. It's scary.”

He swallows.

“It feels so real and close now, she's so, like, low and heavy in me, and I keep getting these fake contractions... Just the idea of it puts me off,” he says. “Makes me feel like an animal. All those people around, when I’m so vulnerable… I dunno.”

“I’ll be there,” Zayn says, and then snorts bitterly. “If you’ll have me.”

Louis rolls his eyes and smiles. “I’ll have you,” he says.

Zayn pulls his knees to his chest like a little kid and looks at Louis, who's noticed one of his Vans is untied.

“Oops,” he says. “Oli double tied ‘em all up so I can just slip into ‘em, but I think he missed this one.”

Zayn reaches out and ties it for him. Louis smooths his hand over Zayn’s back in appreciation.

“I’m surprised you fit into them,” Zayn says. “I remember me mum goin’ up, like, two shoe sizes with Saf.”

“That’s one thing I’ve seemed to escape so far, aye.”

Zayn’s phone dings, then. It's lying between them in the grass. They glance at it at the same time, and see Gigi texted him.

Louis’ face changes. Zayn clicks the screen off and turns it upside down, like he used to do when he was with Pez and he’d get texts from hookups.

“So how much is Gigi going to be around our kid?” Louis says.

He doesn't sound like himself. He sounds possessed by some sort of hormonal jealousy. If Zayn were a more patient and less emotional person, he'd acknowledge where this is coming from and respond calmly.

“Are you fuckin’ _kiddin’_ me, wiv ‘at?” is what he says instead, in an awful aggressive voice.

“I’d like to know!” Louis snaps, leaning forward and struggling to get to his feet. Zayn tries to help him, and Louis bats his hand away, standing and folding his arms over his chest. Zayn jumps up.

“How much is _Liam_ gonna be around our kid?” he shouts. “Oh, wait, only _all the fuckin’ time!_ ”

“You _know_ Liam! I don't know this bird!”

“She's a good girl, Louis!”

“Great! Congrats! Not parentin’ my fuckin’ kid, though!”

“God, you fuckin’ _hypocrite_ ,” Zayn hollers.

Louis stands there, red-faced and scowling, breathing heavily and glaring Zayn down.

“I can't even believe this shit. What if I put my foot down about Liam, huh?”

“If _you_ were pregnant, I'd say go ahead!” Louis retorts. “If I'd known Liam for all of three months, I'd even say you had reason to be concerned!”

“It's _my_ kid!”

“You know what our friend Peter told me?” Louis snarls. “Yeah, remember Peter? We still talk. He texted me he saw you and Gigi doin’ _rails_ at a party in the Hills last week!”

Zayn's blood runs cold.

“I did a bump, not a line,” he shouts. “And she didn't touch it!”

Louis looks utterly appalled with him. His hooded eyes narrow. “I _knew_ it! I knew you ‘adn’t quit coke! _Fuck_!”

“I'm not gonna -- it was the first time in a _long_ time, Louis! And I’m done wiv it, I swear!”

“Great,” Louis says sarcastically. “Really reassurin’.”

“Hey, the only reason _you_ aren't partyin’ is ‘cos you're pregnant! I _know_ you!”

Zayn feels like he's drowning in this argument, knocked every which way by Louis’ suspicion of him and the truth of his own bad behavior. He knows in his heart of hearts that he'll change for the baby, that being a dad will change him, but he hasn't gotten a chance to prove that or test it out, and he's terrified of Louis taking that chance from him.

Louis shakes his head and breathes in deeply. The baby kicks him, and Zayn sees the outline of her foot. He reaches out for Louis’ belly and is soundly rebuffed, with Louis smacking his hands away and taking a few steps back.

“I look like I want you to touch me, right now?” he demands loudly.

“I wanted to touch my _daughter_ , not you.”

“She's _inside_ me!” Louis screams at him.

“ _Not for long_!” Zayn hollers back.

Louis turns from him and walks away, looking terribly morose. He goes and presses his back to the wall next to the door, then slowly slides down until he's sitting. He looks up at the square of grey London sky overhead and blinks as tears begin to roll.

Zayn feels like a shithead. He tentatively sits next to him, then reaches out and swipes Louis’ tears off his cheek with his thumb.

After a moment Louis turns to face him, then reaches up and takes his hand, pulling it down to the swell of his stomach. Zayn reaches out with his other one and they sit there, all four hands pressed to him as she kicks.

“I don't want to take this away from you,” Louis says softly, and then adds with some bitterness, “Seein’ as you barely see me since tour ended.”

Zayn's chest constricts. “I want to be here more,” he whispers. “It's just the record --”

“Don't,” Louis says, wiping at his eyes. “We’ll just start arguin’ again. I don't need to hear it.”

Zayn sighs. He tries to focus on the incredible movement under his palms, the reality of the life the two of them made inside of Louis. The ten rushed minutes on a bus that some miraculous internal combustion fashioned an entirely new person out of.

“You're right, I think,” Louis says drily. “I'll give you that. I'd still be partyin’... I miss it like crazy. I miss weed, I miss drinking.”

“Thanks,” Zayn says. “For givin’ it all up.”

Louis snorts. “Hey, I love our baby, alright?” He swallows. “Anything I say or do, I'm just trying to protect her, even if it don't feel like that. Even if I do somethin’ you think is wrong or unfair.”

Zayn looks at him, hands still pressed to his belly, with Louis’ smaller hands a pleasant weight on top of his own. There's something so appealing about Louis right now, as crazy as he makes Zayn, as angry as they are with each other. He's got this glow and such shiny thick hair, and he's so heavily pregnant that Zayn is drawn to him on a chemical level. It's beyond any logic, he feels it in his blood.

“I'm sorry I did coke,” Zayn mutters. “That was stupid. She’s too close now for me to be doin’ that shit.”

Louis nods, moving his thumb over the back of Zayn’s hand.

“Feels like all I do anymore is make you cry,” Zayn confesses.

Louis laughs. “I cry a lot lately in general, mate, it ain't just you.”

He looks down at their intertwined hands, and a muscle in his jaw jumps like it does when he's thinking about saying something and isn't sure how to phrase it.

“It's like I said, I'll give you as much of her as you prove you can handle,” Louis mutters. “Fuck, take her whole summers and holidays if you like… I mean, long as you stay in England, mind…”

Zayn laughs.

“But you've got to give me the chance to prove it,” he says.

Louis nods, looking distracted. “And you've got to take the chances I give.”

Zayn looks at Louis’ mouth and has another fleeting insane moment of wanting to kiss him. He helps him to his feet, instead.

 

*

 

“I wonder what she’ll look like,” Louis says later, when they’re standing in the waiting area, getting their jackets on.

Joan has pronounced him and their newly head-down baby healthy as usual, and complimented Louis on his nicely his hips have spread, although grumbled at him that he still looks peaky. She’d offered them a three-dimensional ultrasound, which they’d discussed amongst themselves and ultimately vetoed, as they both find them sort of creepy.

Zayn coughs into his elbow. “I was wonderin’ the same thing, earlier. I wonder if…”

He trails off, unsure of what he’s about to say, or how to say it.

“If she’ll look more white, or Middle Eastern?” Louis supplies.

Zayn laughs. “Desi, mate.”

Louis squints at him in genuine confusion.

“You haven’t gotten any better at geography? Pakistan ain’t in the Middle East.”

“Alright, I’m shocked,” Louis says, grinning. “You’ve never corrected me on that!”

“I reckon I probably have,” Zayn says, smiling back.

Louis glances down and makes a triangle on his belly with his hands. Standing there, seeing the immense love he's got in his eyes for their baby, Zayn is struck with sudden anxiety that he won't love her right away like Louis clearly will. He didn't carry her, he's not going to give birth to her -- will she even feel like his, right away? Especially if she doesn't look like him?

Maybe he ought to ask his dad how he felt when Doniya was born, or how long it took him to get used to the idea of parenting. But even then, his dad had his mum. Louis has Liam. Zayn is floundering in the enormity of parenting alone.

He thinks of how he felt when Jay said the word _custody_ to him, how the air left his lungs and his heart was squeezed by fear.

“I hope she’s, like, equal between us,” Louis says. “A good mix. I dunno.”

“Right, me too.” Zayn crosses his arms. “Have you, um… you thought about the religion thing, at all?”

Louis shrugs. “I’m not religious. You’ve got free reign, there.”

“Cool,” Zayn says, relieved.

“It’d be nice for her to have that with your family,” Louis says to him, sounding sincere. “And you.”

Zayn feels a pang of affection toward him.

“I think so too,” he murmurs.

 

*

 

Liam works out a lot, now, because he's really got nothing else to do all day. He gets nervous whenever Louis and Zayn are together -- not because he doesn't trust Louis, but because he knows Louis is likely to come home cheesed off about something Zayn said about Liam, and Liam will have to toe a very delicate line of defending himself but not sounding defensive and not insulting Zayn in turn.

So he lifts weights to pass the time and tries not to imagine what's happening.

He hears Louis return and begins to wind down his workout, jumping on the treadmill to cool down. Louis comes down the stairs eating a package of Red Vines and leans against the mirrored wall, watching him run and sweat.

“Those are terrible for you,” Liam pants.

“Mmm,” Louis says agreeably, continuing to eat them.

“You’re going to give your baby diabetes.”

“Yes,” Louis deadpans, “that’s how it works, innit, you have a few pieces of candy after eating nothing but kale and chicken breasts for months, and you get gestational diabetes in minutes. Where’d you get your medical degree from, Payno?”

Liam hops off the treadmill and comes over to kiss him. Louis laughs and squirms away.

“You’re sweaty,” he complains. “Go shower.”

“No, I want to get it all over you, first,” Liam says, rubbing his forehead on Louis’ face. Louis makes a loud noise of protest and wriggles out of his arms.

“Disgusting,” he comments.

“So how was today?” Liam says, drawing back from him.

Louis breaks his gaze and chews on his lip. “Fine,” he says. “We had a little row.”

“Oh, Lou, I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Louis says lightly. “Every time we interact for more than ten minutes, we have a row, it’s near guaranteed at this point.”

“Yeah, but it shouldn’t be like that,” Liam says. “And it’s partly my fault.”

Louis shrugs. “We made up after, we had some nice moments, it’s alright.”

“I don’t like you stressed, with the baby so close.”

“Liam,” Louis says, smiling patiently, “I’ve been stressed for the last eight months straight. A little more won’t kill me. Baby’s healthy and fine in spite of it.”

Liam makes a petulant noise without meaning to.

“Stop,” Louis says, poking him in the chest. “Alright, I’m going to lie down now.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Liam jokes, stroking his shoulder.

Louis laughs. “I’ll come down for dinner, I promise!”

“I can bring it to you, if you like...”

“No, no, I’ll come down,” Louis says, walking away and toward the stairs.

“D’you want to cuddle?” Liam calls after him.

“Nope,” Louis yells on his way up. “Want to be alone and spread out like a big pregnant octopus! Also, stop turning the air down, it's fuckin’ hot in this place...”

“It's nearly December, babe!” Liam exclaims.

Louis ignores this and lets the door shut loudly behind him. Liam sighs.

 

*

 

When Liam crawls into bed next to Louis that night, Louis starts shifting around, first pressing up against Liam and then pushing away from him, seemingly unable to get comfortable.

"You need something?" Liam says after a while, having grown slightly narky about it. He's just hoping Louis doesn't send him out to the store for some absurd late-night purchase. He's only pulled this card once in his entire pregnancy, back when they'd just come home from the tour. He'd rolled over and politely but firmly informed Liam that he needed to drink an entire carton of orange juice or he was going to lose his mind.

"Sorry," Louis mutters, and Liam immediately feels bad for being annoyed with him. "I'm just --" he huffs out a laugh. "I'm really horny and I'm not sure what to do about it."

Liam rolls over with a grunt. "Let me take care of it..."

He presses bodily up against Louis and reaches down to begin jerking him off, slipping his hand into the slit of his boxers and taking a firm hold of his half-hard cock. Louis clings to him, and Liam kisses him deeply, pushing his tongue hard into Louis' warm mouth.

Louis moans so loudly that Liam shivers. He inches up on the bed and grabs some lube off the bedside table. He initially just intends to use it for the hand job, but then Louis' hand creeps down and encourages his own to trail backward, and soon he's a few knuckles deep in Louis while still jerking him off with the other hand.

Louis is a needy mess against him, groaning and whining. They haven't done much since Liam's been home, for a lack of energy and a lack of desire from Louis. Liam's missed him dearly.

The reverse must be true as well, because as Louis draws near to coming, he starts to beg Liam for his cock.

"Oh, Louis," Liam protests, even as he's stiffening in response to this and starting to rut against Louis as best he can.

"It's safe," Louis assures him, stroking his hair. Liam crooks his fingers and rubs more insistently inside him and Louis lets out a choked noise and passionately exclaims, " _God_..."

"You sure?"

"I'll just do it cowgirl, just don't take too long..."

"I feel weird with you so far along," Liam protests weakly.

Louis smiles at him, eyes twinkling, as if he likes the challenge of convincing him. "C'mon," he says, in his most throaty and sexy voice, and begins to rub at Liam's hard cock in his boxers. "I feel you there, Payno. I feel how hard you are for me. Don't you want to fuck me? Don't you want to put your big cock in my tight arse?"

"Louis," he moans.

"C'mon, don't play games with me... D'you know how horny I am, can't you feel how bad I want you? Feel me around your fingers like 'at? Don't you wanna make me feel good?"

Liam is already taking his boxers off mindlessly, like a man possessed. "Louis," he says again, breathing it out on an exhale. He lies down on the bed and Louis climbs on top of him, ungainly but still sprightly. Liam feels like a bit of a sicko for how attractive he still finds him. It's mostly that his arse and thighs are unreal right now. He's already dreading the day the baby comes, and Louis embarks on an immediate campaign to tighten back up. Liam likes him thicker like this.

He's used to Louis weighing less, though, and he's sort of crushing Liam's hips right now, but Liam would never even dream of mentioning this. Louis has a mean little right hand that stings like hell even when he hits you gently. 

Louis gets Liam's cock into himself immediately and begins to rock on him. He's too tired to really go for it, but the back and forth motion he gets going feels incredible on its own. Liam grips the sheets, swearing and groaning. Louis continues to let out loud moans and soft sighs that hurry Liam along.

Louis' face is drawn in serene concentration as he rides Liam's cock. His eyes are closed and his lips parted, with a flush high in his cheeks. Liam could look at him like this forever. 

He comes first, which is embarrassing, since Louis has been hard for longer. Louis continues to ride him post-orgasm, like he's annoyed at having a hard cock taken away from him. Liam just lies there, eyelids fluttering, unsure if what he's experiencing is magnified pleasure or discomfort.

When he finally climbs off, Liam reaches over into the bedside drawer and produces a vibrator.

"Thank fucking God," Louis huffs. 

"You can't expect me to stay hard for very long when we haven't done that in months," Liam exclaims defensively.

"No, no, Payno, I know, I know. I just really want a certain kind of orgasm, is all."

"Well, you'll get one," he says, and lays Louis back across the bed like he's the very pregnant subject of a Rubens painting. Louis sprawls his hand over the back of Liam's head, running his fingers through his hair, as Liam reaches down between them, slides the toy inside of Louis and turns it on.

Louis reacts like a firework has gone off inside of him, his eyes rolling back in his head and a muscle in his leg spasming. "Fuck," he cries in ecstasy. "Fuck, yes, God, yeah --"

Liam kisses him hard, biting his lip. Louis cups Liam's throat in his hand and presses a thumb hard to his jaw as he moans into Liam's mouth.

He comes in a minute flat, shuddering hard and whimpering. Liam tries not to feel upstaged by this. 

"I love you," he murmurs, kissing Louis on the cheeks. Louis gazes at him, adorably cross-eyed from how close together they are, and kisses Liam back. 

 

DONCASTER, DECEMBER 25, 2015

Louis makes a valiant effort to stay at the dinner table, but that lasts for all of six minutes. It isn’t his fault -- his mum and Dan goofed up the timing on the food, and it’s taking Fizzy forever to round up all of the olds.

He sits in a ridiculous position in his chair, craned to the side and leaning his weight onto his elbow on the armrest, but it barely helps. His back is aching beyond all human reason and he feels like the most awkwardly encumbered person on the entire earth. The chair seems to him like something out of a miniature torture chamber. Louis has never liked being dainty and small, but he’d give anything to feel that way again right now.

“Alright,” he abruptly announces when the pain and claustrophobia have worked his last hormonal nerve. He engages in some elaborate gymnastics with the armrests and the side of the table to get up, and fails. Lottie holds out an arm and he rather violently pushes down on her shoulder as he levers himself to his feet. “I fuckin’ -- I’m going for some air.”

The younger ones giggle appreciatively at him saying fuck.

“Oh, Louis, the food’s about to come out,” Jay exclaims. “We haven’t even all sat down yet!”

“I’ve got to get outside, mum, or I’ll kill somebody,” Louis says patiently, still leaning on Lottie.

“Can’t he have a beer?” Dan says to Jay. “I mean, what harm is it going to do at nine months pregnant, you know? It’s not unheard of, medically. It would quiet the baby down, at least.”

“For God’s sake, Dan, this is my grandchild and my child, not some random patient! And it isn’t nineteen-ninety!”

“Fuck a beer,” Louis says. “I’d kill for a smoke, though. Would just one be alright?”

He’s mostly kidding, although if they actually said yes, he wouldn’t waste a second hunting down a pack.

Jay puts her face in her hands. “ _No!_ And Louis, I know you’re very uncomfortable right now, and I sympathize, but you’ve got to stop swearing and talking about killing people at Christmas dinner.”

“Sorry, mum,” Louis says genuinely, as he’s moving to leave.

“Want company?” Lottie says, glancing up at him.

Louis ruffles her hair and shakes his head. “Thanks though, love.”

As he walks away he hears Phoebe grumble, “Why’s _he_ get to leave the table?” and Jay reply, “Shush, darling, have some bread.”

Once he gets out into the back garden he takes a massive breath of fresh air, and then immediately goes and lies down in the grass. This is sort of a tactical error, as he’s likely not going to be able to get up again on his own, but his back cracks in three separate places when his spine stretches out on the hard winter ground, and it’s the most comfortable he’s been all day.

He lies there, momentarily content. He shrugged a coat on before he came out, but he thinks he probably doesn’t even need it. He’s so hot now, constantly. He sometimes feels Liam wake up next to him at night and toss the covers off of them because of how warm he makes the bed.

The baby is waking up inside of him, starting to move around again. Louis sweeps his hands over the vast swell of her.

“I know I keep saying I’m scared to do the laborin’ bit,” he says aloud, “but feel free to come as soon as you like. ‘Cos I’m pretty miserable, I won’t lie. And I’d really like to meet you already.”

He grows soft when he touches her, he can feel it. It calms him. He always thought he’d get calm and feel older before he had a baby, but now it’s happening in the reverse. The knowledge of the baby is sobering him up and making more of a man out of him. He still thinks, like he always does, _I can’t do this, it’s not in me, I’m too big a fuckup,_ but something else has begun to happen more and more -- he remembers all the reasons he can. He remembers how long he’s wanted to be a dad and how he started getting broody over babies when he was just sixteen, how much he’s done for his siblings and always has.

Lately he’s been remembering the dreams he used to have, about finding a little baby in a patch of grass or on his front step, swaddled in blankets with a note attached for whoever found it to please take care of it. He always loved those dreams.

Twenty-three -- twenty-four, Louis reminds himself -- is young, but it isn’t that young. It isn’t _too_ young. If this had to happen, if he had to be delivered from on high a baby he loves and feels an overpowering need to give life to, best that it’s now, right? When he’s old enough to handle it, extremely wealthy and freshly unemployed?

In some sort of hiccup of the universe, he thinks of Zayn right before Zayn calls.

Louis comes around to thinking of him by first missing Liam. He thinks of how nice it is to have Liam dote on him, to rub his back for hours, to kiss and sing to his belly and jolly him out of his darker moods. He’s wondering where they’ve all gone wrong that it isn’t Zayn doing these things, that it isn’t the father of his baby that he’s in love with, when his mobile rings and _Zayn Malik_ serendipitously pops up on the top of the screen.

Louis fumbles it in surprise before he picks up. “Hey there. ’Sup?”

“Hey. Not too late there, is it?”

“No, only eight.”

“Oh, alright, I’ve sort of lost track of time.”

Louis clears his throat. “You’re in the states?”

“Uh-huh,” Zayn says. “Um, Gigi’s family’s ‘avin’ me for Christmas.”

Louis is already feeling sensitive and raw, and for some reason, this news wounds him.

“Right,” he says. “That sounds nice.”

His back is finally growing cold from the frost underneath him. He manages to get himself in a sitting position.

“I just wanted to say happy Christmas,” Zayn says. His voice is soft, like he’s snuck off somewhere to have this conversation. “And, um, happy birthday. Sorry. Meant to text you yesterday.”

“Thanks, mate,” Louis murmurs. “Happy Christmas to you, too.”

“Thanks. It’s been nice, so far. I reckon they like me.”

He seems to really care about this. Louis has to remind himself of everything he’s put Zayn through with Liam, but he still can’t help but feel rejected and pathetic and small. _Why are you having Christmas with your girlfriend’s family when I’m nine months pregnant with your baby? Why haven’t you seen me more often since the end of tour?_

It isn’t fair of him, he knows, but none of this is fair, and he can barely think for the breathless spiky resentment in his chest.

“That’s good,” Louis says, working hard to keep his jaw loose as he says this. He’s glad Zayn can’t see his face, he’s shit at lying with his face.

“How d’you feel?”

Zayn asks this perfunctorily each time they talk, especially lately. Louis trails his fingers over his belly. The baby pushes her foot against him, which is a queasy sight he still hasn’t gotten used to -- his skin distending like the bloke from the _Alien_ movie. He puts his hand where she was, and feels her again, under his fingers. He smiles.

“As good as possible, considering.”

“I know it ain’t easy,” Zayn says. “Every time I see you, I’m like, Christ, ‘e’s so pregnant, but then you just get even more pregnant.”

“Soon I’ll explode,” Louis deadpans, still thinking of _Alien._

“Or, like, have the baby.”

“Right, the other option.”

Zayn laughs.

Louis is wary of them getting along. He always feels the invisible countdown in his head to when they’ll start rowing about something. “So,” he says. “I’ll let you get back to… Christmas.”

He almost said Gigi, but Liam recently (and gently) pointed out to him that he every time he says her name, he sounds like he’s mocking it.

“Yeah, you too,” Zayn says. “Um... say hi to your mum for me.”

Louis is puzzled by this, but agrees to it, and they hang up.

He rings Liam, then, because talking to Liam knits up the wounds that talking to Zayn rips open. He toys with the Claddagh ring Liam gave to him before they parted for the holidays, waiting for him to pick up.

Liam had told him he didn't have to wear it on his finger if he thought people might comment on it, so Louis has been wearing it on a chain around his neck, kept safe underneath his shirts and close to his chest.

“Hey,” Liam says cheerfully, answering on the fifth ring. Louis knows for a fact that he often picks up his phone immediately and then waits for a few rings to elapse before he answers, so he doesn’t seem needy. Knowing this makes Louis love him a little more.

“Hi,” Louis chirps. “How’s Christmas?”

“My parents got me, as a _present,_ this makeup that covers tattoos,” Liam says. “I hope it’s a joke, but they haven’t said.”

Louis hears Ruth yelling in the background, “It’s for the Christmas photos, numpty!”

“Everyone knows I’ve got tattoos, Ruth, for God’s sake,” Liam yells back.

“Then just wear long sleeves.”

“I’ve got ones on my hands!”

“Well, _that_ was a bad place for ‘em, wasn’t it?”

Louis can’t help laughing to himself, alone in the dark.

“These people,” Liam says, in fond exasperation.

“They don’t get it, Payno, how cool we are.”

“I mean, the coolest.”

“Oh, shit,” Louis says, suddenly. “I’ve just realized something.”

“What?” Liam sounds worried.

“My kid’s going to think I’m lame! She isn’t going to think I’m cool at all.”

Liam starts laughing. “There are worse fates.”

“Are there? And what if she doesn’t like football? What if she hates music?”

“Alright, I’ll stop you right there, no one hates music.”

“I can’t just take your word for that. There’s got to be some people out there.”

“A kid you and Zayn made isn’t going to hate music.”

They go on like this for a while, until Louis is too cold to ignore his shivering and finally admits to Liam that he’s been sitting outside this entire time. Liam has a strop about him being an idiot and tells him to get indoors this minute.

“Okay,” Louis says, teeth chattering. “I’m going... Love you.”

“Love you too, go _inside!_ ”

Louis texts Lottie for her to come help him up. He does manage to get to his feet before she reaches him, so he just has her hold the sliding door for him while he comes in, rubbing his freezing hands together.

Lottie shakes her head at him and ushers him into the sitting room. He collapses into a recliner, and she piles blankets atop him.

“I’ll sit with you,” she says. “We’ve started talking politics at dinner, so I had to get out of there, anyway.”

“Glad I missed that,” Louis murmurs. “They talk about me at all?”

“Not really. Mum just said where you’d gone to, no one held it against you. Want me to make you up a plate?”

“‘M not hungry,” he says. “Baby’s sort of crushing my stomach right now. Actually, I’ve got to wee, but I don’t want to get up.”

“Warm up first,” Lottie instructs him.

Louis lies there, nearly dozing off from the weight of the blankets on him and the heat the baby creates. Sitting in the recliner, he can actually see his feet for once, and he kicks his shoes off.

“You don’t think I made a mistake keeping her, do you?” he murmurs. “Like, _I_ know I didn’t, but most everyone seems to think I have, whether or not they say it to my face...”

“No, no!” Lottie exclaims, looking over at him. “God, no…”

“No one gets it,” Louis says, closing his eyes. Being so close to sleep makes him more forthcoming. Under the blankets, he cradles his stomach with his hands as if to protect her. “I get why the fans are upset, but Christ, everyone else… I’m not _Harry_. If I was Harry, it’d be different.”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“I mean like, with career shit,” Louis says, gesturing. His eyelids are growing heavy.

“Oh, right. Yeah, I see what you mean.”

“I’m not throwin’ away some golden Timberlake solo career that’s all laid out for me. Or acting career, whatever the fuck he’s decided ‘e’s doing… I’m not throwing away anythin’. I’m just gaining something I want really badly.”

“You don’t have to convince me, Lou,” Lottie says, her voice low with sincerity. “I feel like -- how can it be a mistake when you want it this much? You’ve already had more success in your life than most people ever do. I've been on tour with you, I know how you've worked like a dog for years and years… Why shouldn't you get to have this?”

Louis smiles. “I knew there was a reason I liked you,” he says blearily.

Lottie comes over and kisses him on the cheek, stroking his hair.

“I'm really excited to meet her,” she whispers.

“Me too,” Louis says in a soft voice, smiling wide.

 

LONDON, DECEMBER 31, 2015

“It's New Years Eve,” is the first thing Louis tells Liam when they wake up.

Liam knows Louis loves New Years and is going to be bummed about not going out, so he immediately begins brainstorming ways to make him forget about this. He drags his keyboard onto the bed and begins plinking away.

“This is something I've been working on for myself,” he says, and then starts playing.

Louis listens for about fifteen seconds and then squints at him. “That's Cotton-Eyed Joe,” he informs him.

“Ah, shit,” Liam says, grinning at him. “I thought it sounded familiar.”

Louis snorts appreciatively. “C’mere, Payno.”

Liam cuddles up against him, one hand going to his lower back and the other to the baby. Louis buries his face against Liam's chest. Liam still gets a little thrill every time Louis so much as touches him, like he's back in primary school.

“What haven't we covered, with basic baby care stuff?” Louis murmurs, running his hand through Liam's hair, scrunching it in his fingers where it's getting long in the back.

“Umm,” Liam says. “I dunno. You tell me.”

“We talked about the soft spot…”

“Right, right.”

“We talked about baths not being too hot… not giving her a bottle that's ten thousand degrees...”

“Yeah, you seem mostly concerned that I'm going to burn her to death,” Liam says, kissing him on the temple. “Not sure why.”

Louis laughs.

“I just want to meet her,” he complains. “I just want to see her face, already. I want to smell her, is that weird? They smell so good.”

“I'll take your word for it, baby-sniffer.”

“I love babies,” Louis murmurs, smiling. He's in a strange mood, lately, mardy and uncomfortable much of the time but also pacified by her presence in him, calmed in some profound way by the strength of his love.

Liam looks at him fondly. “Want to stay up for New Year Live?”

“I doubt I’ll make it to midnight, honestly. Look, you should go out, or have people over or something.”

“No, no,” Liam exclaims. “And leave you here all alone? God, no.”

“Alright, but we could still have people over, mate.”

“We could… it'd be all our boring older friends. It'd be like a Harry party...”

“I wonder what Lou’s doing? _She's_ got a kid. Probably got cool plans anyway,” Louis says with a little sigh.

“Maybe I can get some non-alcoholic champagne,” Liam suggests.

“Oh, boy, what fun.”

“Heyyy… I'm trying…”

“I know, I know,” Louis assures him, looking up at him. “Might as well pretend it's just another Thursday, honestly.”

“Hey, but think of it like this,” Liam suggests cheerfully. “In two weeks, all these sad sacks who were out having crazy fun tonight will be back working their shit jobs, and we'll be holed up in your big house with your brand-new beautiful baby, getting fawned over and getting presents.”

“And recovering from childbirth, and getting thrown up and peed on…”

“Tommo… you're sincerely impossible sometimes.”

Louis grins at him. “No, you're right,” he says, snuggling back up against him. “You're right.”

 

LONDON, JANUARY 2, 2016

Zayn stands in the back room at Rolex -- the rich persons room, a brilliantly lit cave of treasures where they keep the best of their merchandise. An older dealer who's sort of stodgy in his bearings observes Zayn as he bends over one of the cases, looking for something Louis would like.

“What exactly are we looking for, today?” the dealer finally says to him, after he's been squinting for several minutes.

Zayn glances up. “Sorry, what's your name?”

“Tom.”

“Alright, hey Tom. Nice to meet you.”

“The pleasure is all mine, Mr Malik. How may I best assist you?”

Zayn drums his fingers on the case. “Um,” he says.

Tom adjusts his glasses and waits patiently.

“Say you got somebody pregnant, and you've sort of done some bad shit to each other. And when the kid comes you want to give ‘im somethin’ that says like, ‘sorry for all the bad shit and sorry I got you pregnant and sorry you had to give birth an’ all that, but here's a Rolex.’”

“Right,” Tom says primly. “For a push present, I'd recommend a Yacht-Master. Big with omega men. Big as gifts from alphas to omegas, I should say.”

“Can I see a few of those?”

Tom brings out a rack of gleaming luminescent watches, each more expensive-looking than the next.

Zayn trails his fingers over a black one near the end. “How much?”

“Twenty thousand.”

Zayn considers this. “Let's go bigger. I don't want him thinking I'm bein’ cheap with him.”

Tom taps a gold watch that’s heavy, expensive-looking and sort of gaudy. “Forty.”

“Nah, he don't like gold much…”

Finally Tom draws his attention to a pearly silver watch, quietly beautiful in its setting but even more striking for the face, which has a blue rim, a black backing and red hands that remind him of sailing equipment.

“He'd like that,” Zayn says, smiling. “Lay it on me.”

“Twenty-seven.”

“Alright, sold.”

Tom removes it from the rack with careful hands. “Do you know his size?”

“Test it on mine,” Zayn says, holding his wrist out. “Our wrists are the same.”

They used to trade watches after they realized this. Zayn still has a few of Louis’, and one of his Ramones tank tops. He'd buried it in a drawer somewhere after he found it and realized it still smelled like Louis' cologne.

Tom slips it onto him. It hangs loose.

“We’ll remove one link for you, sir,” he says.

Zayn nods.

 

LONDON, JANUARY 7, 2016

Zayn had managed, somehow, to trick himself. Since the day Louis came to his door and told him he was pregnant, he's told himself that he had time, that he had all the time in the world. It's like essays in secondary, when he knew the book and knew what he wanted to say and left it until the last minute anyway, too afraid he would fuck it up, too afraid it wouldn't be his best to even try.

The nursery isn't done. Nothing, really, is done. He's frightened and mortified to ask anyone for help, even his mum, because they'll undoubtedly ask why he didn't come to him earlier. He hasn't got a good answer to that.

Even with Louis’ due date a week out, Zayn is gripped by a stubborn desire to party some more, to throw himself entirely into his album, to act dumb and entitled and twenty-two. Some wretched part of him just doesn’t want this to happen, not right now, not when he’s so young, so free, and so bound to fuck parenting up.

He loves his baby, but he's deeply afraid of her. She's like a dream that only feels good when you're having it.

Zayn isn’t quite sure how he got here. He had seen Louis nine months pregnant just the other day, talking about Braxton Hicks, and Zayn had delivered a bunch of baby supplies to him, and yet the penny did not drop.

He wanders his house at night, unable to sleep, the crib he bought still half-put together and haunting him from the empty room he’s trying to make into a nursery. He’d had a panic attack halfway through setting it up and left the room, closing the door and going downstairs to lie on the couch and try to take deep breaths.

He can’t tell Louis. He refuses. Louis will go apeshit. And why shouldn’t he? Zayn’s screamed at him and berated him over wanting access to this baby, and yet he’s scared out of his mind to get the access he wants.

Zayn keeps a sonogram photo in his wallet and allows everyone who knows him to think the only thing he's feeling is excitement. His sisters and his mum, his friends and his band, they all keep mentioning to him how close it is. They give him sweet, knowing smiles like it’s a joyful little secret. He wishes so badly that he could say -- without sounding like an asshole, or like he isn’t already greatly fond of his daughter -- that every time someone mentions her to him he’s sent into spasms of panic and guilt.

On Thursday, he wakes up full of creative energy and in a terrific mood. He’s just come off a week of visiting with Gigi, who seems to be trying to put the baby stuff aside and treated him like gold the entire time they were together. Everything he records sounds brilliant, everyone is smiling at him. Arianna dances around the studio with his other guitarist, Liso, and they call to him about how much they vibe this track.

He leaves his phone in his jacket on silent, and he leaves his jacket in the control room. In years to come, he will punish himself for this decision hundreds of times. Right now, it just doesn’t occur to him. The baby is still a week away. He’s got all the time in the world.

Zayn picks up his phone twenty-five minutes after Louis first calls. He knows this, because the first voicemail notification is from twenty-five minutes ago. And then there's one from Jay. And then two from Liam.

His heart thuds sickeningly in his chest, and his hands tremble as he fumbles to unlock his phone and bring it to his ear. He can’t shake the thought that something terrible has happened. It buzzes in his mind like a fly in a quiet room.

James stares at him as he listens to his voicemails, concerned.

Louis’ confirms what he thought, that the baby is coming. In it, he sounds scared in a way that makes Zayn instinctively want to be at his side.

Jay’s message is the same as her son’s, but Liam must have a better reason for calling him than just to say that Louis is in labor. He and Liam are not on speaking terms, to say the least. And labor takes hours and hours, Zayn knows this. If it weren’t an emergency, they would have waited before trying to reach him again, or Louis would have called again himself --

“Hey,” Liam’s voice says tentatively. “I know you don’t want to hear from me… but like Louis said, the baby is coming, and we’re here now at the hospital, and it’s all happening really fast. Louis and the baby are fine, it's just -- it's happening. Jay is on her way, but even she might not make it in time. You should --”

Zayn shoves his phone into his pocket without even pausing the message. It continues to play faintly from his jeans as he throws his jacket on and grabs his wallet off the console.

“I've got to go, Louis is in labor,” he announces to the room at large. “Fuck. _Fuck!”_

There’s a chorus of exclamations and congratulations from all of them that he barely hears as he flees the room, down the long hall, picking up speed. He skids into the lobby and bolts for his security’s car as fast as he can. He trips and falls on his hands and knees, and immediately gets back up, his scraped palms stinging.

“SEAN,” Zayn screams as soon as he’s close. The driver's side window is open, and Sean is smoking. He starts when he hears the urgent tone of Zayn's voice. “Get the car on, take me to Portland Hospital, Louis is ‘avin’ the baby.”

He flings himself into the backseat. A startled but calm Sean immediately peels out.

Zayn finds he can't think or sit still or do anything but jiggle his leg and experience intense and unfair murderous loathing of every other driver on the road. He sits, trembling with nervous energy, as they sit in lunch rush traffic and listen to morons honking all around them.

“Can't we go _any_ faster,” he begs when they're halfway there.

“I would if I could, mate, you know that. Look, it'll probably take a bit, I don't think you'll miss it.”

“Liam said he was nearly finished!” Zayn cries, flinging himself back against the seat so he hasn't got to look at all the cars around them anymore.

He rings Liam, then, hoping to at least talk to Louis.

Liam tells him he'll try, and then there's some shuffling of the phone and a lot of background noise. He hears Liam say _it's Zayn_.

“Louis,” he says immediately. “I'm getting there as fast as I can --

“Why aren't you fuckin’ _‘ere_ ,” Louis wails at him, sounding so unlike himself, his voice high and rent apart by desperation. “Fuck off! I need you! I want you ‘ere with me, I'm havin’ your _baby!_ Fuckin’ shit’ead!”

“I know,” Zayn says, his heart ablaze in his chest with regret. “I _know_ , I'm comin’, I promise!”

Louis whimpers in pain and then yells for him to go fuck himself.

“I'll be there!”

“IT’S _HAPPENING!_ _RIGHT NOW!_ Jesus fucking SHITTING Christ, Zayn, fuck! Fuck you! Get fucked!... Get _here_!”

His voice goes all soft and pathetic on that last bit, and Zayn wants to tear himself through time and space to reach him.

The phone is hung up by someone. Zayn lies back against the seat again, making a quiet noise of grief.

“It's alright if you don't see her born,” Sean says. “You'll meet her right after, you'll do all the important bits, it’s alright.”

“But I want to help Louis through this, he's scared, he's hurtin’…”

“That ain't really your job,” Sean tells him gently, glancing back at him over the divider. “That's his boyfriend’s job. Don't worry about that bit.”

Zayn's mouth goes dry. Perhaps they should have made a go of it, after all, just so he would never have to feel as crushed as he does now.

“But I did this to him,” he mutters.

“Nah, kid. Can't think of it like that. He's hurting right now, but it's a beautiful thing, and in a few minutes you'll both have your baby in your arms and you'll forget all the bad.”

“Promise?” Zayn says, like a little boy.

“Promise.”

 

*

 

Zayn races in the side entrance like a crazy person, tearing through the hall to the stairs, bolting up three flights to the baby ward. He's looking around, completely lost and beginning to panic, when he spots Liam walking down the other end of the hall.

He's covered up in a yellow gown with bloody gloves on his hands. Zayn's heart thuds more terrifically in his chest.

“Oi!” he shouts.

Liam turns, looking extremely relieved to hear his voice. He beckons Zayn to follow him, and Zayn falls in step, sweating profusely under his jacket.

“Everythin’ okay?” Zayn says, his breath jerky, not wanting to know if the answer is no.

“Yeah, yeah, it's great, they're both fine,” Liam assures him. “Louis was incredible. He was so tough. No pain meds at all.”

“ _What?”_

“There wasn't time. Apparently, like, he was in labor a lot of last night into this morning. He had no idea --”

“So she's here? She's out?”

“She's out,” Liam says happily, more happily than Zayn would like. He waves his bloody hands. “Um, this is just from -- I held her while Joan cut the cord.”

Zayn hates this, but says nothing.

Liam studies him as they half-walk, half-jog down the hall. “She asked if I wanted to cut it myself, I said that was your job.”

“It was,” Zayn says, his voice icy. “I tried really fuckin’ hard to be here.”

“I know.”

“I didn't --”

“He's in here,” Liam interrupts, gesturing to the door that he's halted in front of. He knocks on it softly, and Louis’ soft voice calls out.

Zayn stops in his tracks. His anger toward Liam falls away from him. His heart leaps into his chest, and seems to beat there; he feels as if he's floating several inches off the ground.

Liam pulls the door open.

“My baby's in there?” Zayn whispers. “My little girl’s in there?”

Liam looks at him with round doe eyes and nods.

He hesitates, and then steps into the doorway.

Louis is propped up on lots of pillows in the bed, IV sticking out of his wrist. His face is puffy and red and his eyes are shining like he's been crying.

In his arms is their daughter. The sight of her strikes Zayn like lightning where he stands. He feels as if he'd recognize her anywhere, that he could pick her out of a lineup of ten hundred babies.

“Ran into him in the hall,” Liam says.

“Get the fuck over here,” Louis says hoarsely. He's gazing at Zayn with a look that leaves Zayn breathless. There's a tired maturity to it, a wordless acknowledgement of how their worlds have shifted now that their daughter has been delivered from Louis and into the world.

Zayn goes to him as soon as he says this, staring at their baby in Louis’ arms.

She's tiny. Her fists are infinitesimal, her entire head rests comfortably in Louis’ palm. Even despite that she's very ruddy, and her eyes are barely open, Zayn can tell how much she resembles him.

“God,” he breathes.

Louis budges up on the bed, watching him, and Zayn climbs up next to him.

“I'm so sorry,” he says. “I was in the studio, I didn't have me phone, I didn't ever think it'd happen so suddenly --”  
  
“No apologies, alright?” Louis says softly, and hands her over, very gingerly and somewhat reluctantly. “Go on, meet your daughter.”

Between her gentle weight in his arms and seeing her scrunch up her face as she's passed over, the sight of her tiny perfect limbs and the black hair she's already got, Zayn begins to silently cry. The tears feel so good leaving him, like they're flushing out some of the poison of the last six months. He's moonstruck, already sick with love.

“She's perfect,” he whispers, stroking her hair. She shifts in his hands and lets out a soft burble. Zayn is enthralled by her every move.

“I know,” Louis says. His voice is raw from screaming, but his tone is gentle.

“Thank you,” Zayn tells him, tracing his thumb over her little cheek.

Louis wipes the tears that have begun streaming down his own face. “Don't thank me for giving birth,” he says. “I didn't exactly have a choice.”

Zayn thinks of the watch he bought, which he’s been keeping in Sean’s car for when the baby came. He makes a mental note to fetch it.

“Thank you for makin’ her, I mean,” he says gently, and means it. “I love her…” he grows choked up, and has to pause a second. “I was afraid it wouldn't come right away, I was afraid I'd look at her and I wouldn't feel anythin’.”

It feels awful to admit this, now that he’s holding her in his arms, supporting her tiny precious head. Louis smiles at him, though.

“But she just feels like ours, doesn't she?”

Zayn likes the way he says _ours._

“She does,” he murmurs. “She looks like us…”

She’s got Louis’ nose, he noticed right away. There’s something dizzying about seeing their features together like this.

The baby starts to fuss. Louis takes her back, to no avail; the nurse comes in with a bottle, and this doesn’t seem to help either.

Louis starts to sing a Beach Boys song to her. Zayn joins in, harmonizing easily with him, and she quiets in response. Zayn’s heart swells.

They both look happily at her. She looks up at them, her eyes beginning to really open for the first time. They’re the standard baby dark blue. Zayn wonders if they’ll lighten to match Louis’, or darken to be like his.

He glances sideways, and notices Louis looks absolutely exhausted. He gets up.

“I’m going to go update our families,” Zayn says. “I’ll be back, yeah?”

He had texted with his parents from the car, but hasn’t spoken to them since. He assumes they’re all on their way.

“Send Liam in,” Louis calls at his departing back.

Zayn stops where he stands. This feels like a low blow to him. He grits his teeth and reminds himself that if he’d just gone through this, he’d want his girlfriend at his side, kissing him and reassuring him. It takes some of the sting out, but not much.

“I just gave birth to your baby without any drugs, Zayn,” Louis says, and there’s some pointed resentment under his words. “Remember that before you answer.”

He turns and nods. “I’ll send him in.”

Zayn steps outside, where a waiting Liam is leaning against the wall like a dog that’s been banished to the back garden. He glances up at Zayn warily.

“Louis wants you,” Zayn practically spits at him.

“Zayn --” Liam bites the inside of his cheek. His eyes are large with regret. “I’m sorry about all this --”

“Whatever,” he cuts him off. “I’ll be right back.”

Liam nods and slips into the room. Zayn walks away, shrugging his leather jacket more firmly over his shoulders.

 

*

 

Zayn gets a few fitful hours of sleep on one of the couches in the fancy maternity ward lounge. It’s an awkward setup. He should have just gotten a hotel nearby, but Jay mentioned Liam was spending the night and he’d had an insane spasm of territoriality and said, “Me too.”

So the three of them settled in, Jay’s presence enforcing an uneasy peace between Zayn and Liam. Everyone else headed out -- Zayn’s family went back to Bradford after effusively congratulating him and setting up tentative plans to visit him one of the weekends he has her.

(“We’ll wait a while, don’t worry,” his mother had said. “We’ll let you get settled in and used to having her, first.”

Zayn had just nodded wordlessly, unable to express to her the terror he’s experiencing over the idea of taking this tiny and incredibly precious creature into his home and tending to her all by himself. _Help,_ he wants to say, _help,_ but his mouth doesn’t open.

His father hadn’t said much, just smiled quite a bit and proudly told him, “She already looks like you.”)

Louis’ siblings had all come, at least the ones who are old enough, and were shepherded back to their hotel hours ago by a wearied-looking Dan. Lottie had smiled at Zayn on their way out, which surprised him. He keeps assuming that he’s persona non grata among everyone who loves Louis, except for Jay, who is apparently bound and determined to be kind to him.

He wakes at two a.m. and checks his phone. It’s flooded with congratulations that can wait until tomorrow for a response. He sets his phone on his chest and sits there, listening to Liam snore and remembering a time when would have hit Liam in the face with a pillow and then stood over him grinning as Liam blinked himself back to wakefulness, and fondly told him, “You’re sawing logs, Leeyum.”

Zayn’s heart wrenches in his chest. He gets up, wanting to visit with his baby.

Hospitals are eerie at night, but the maternity ward is cheerful, with its baby-related decorations and general frilly cheer. Zayn glances at corkboards with photos of happy parents as he goes by, noticing how much older than him they all are, noticing nearly all of them seem to be partnered up with each other.

He opens Louis’ door very quietly and creeps in. Louis is lying on his side, drooling onto his pillow. His eyelids are fluttering and the corners of his mouth are being tugged down in a way Zayn recognizes, like when he’d sleep fitfully on the bus and wake up cranky. He’s even quieter as he moves through the room, toward the bassinet.

Mia is asleep, but she stirs awake when Zayn gets close. It’s like she senses him. She screws her face up and begins to whimper, and he scoops her into his arms, holding her to his chest and shushing to her.

“Don’t wake your daddy,” he whispers.

She soothes very fast in his arms. He feels an overpowering mix of pride and awe in response to this; it rests high and heavy in his chest, warming him through his entire body.

Zayn stands and rocks her in his arms, her inert little head pressed to his chest and one tiny hand gripping his shirt, him kissing her on the head and murmuring to her about what a sweet girl she is.

“Daddy’s awake,” a soft voice says from behind him.

Zayn turns in surprise and sees Louis shifting in his bed, hitting the clicker that dispenses more Demerol to his IV. His eyes are bloodshot and sleepy, but he’s smiling.

“Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t want to interrupt, just felt weird eavesdroppin’...”

“No, no,” Zayn murmurs, and presses his lips to their daughter’s head again. She snuffles. “I didn’t mean to wake you, sorry --”

“No, you didn’t really,” Louis quietly assures him. “I’m… um, the meds wore off, and I was in a lot of pain. Was just too tired to wake up, like, fully. I’ve been drifting in and out for a little while.”

“Is that normal?” Zayn whispers.

“What, the pain?”

“Yeah...”

Louis smiles wanly and nods.

“But I feel this already,” he says, tapping his upper arm where the IV is taped to him, and settling back against the pillows, looking warmly at the two of them.

“She smells good,” Zayn whispers. “Is that weird?”

“No,” Louis murmurs, his smile growing wider. It lights up his face, despite how drained and pale he is. He looks like he's about to drift off again. “I was just saying to -- I was just saying the other day, how good newborns smell...”

“I don't want to put her down,” Zayn says.

She's falling back asleep against him, her tiny lungs making her warm back rise and fall under his hand.

Louis gazes at the two of them for a while. Zayn feels a bit self-conscious, but Louis looks happy watching them, and he's clearly falling back asleep, anyway.

He watches as Louis’ eyelids close and his breathing begins to slow, continuing to rock their daughter and coo soft nothings to her.

After a while, he goes and sits in a rocking chair in the corner. Mia rests easily against him, her little brow unworried and her breathing soft and even. She coughs, and he marvels at how entranced he is by even the soft sound of it. Everything she does astounds him.

“It’s worth it, isn’t it?” he says to her, in the quiet of the hospital room. “All of this? For you?”

 

***

 

LONDON, JANUARY 7, 2017

Mia’s first birthday is one of many Mia-centered events that Zayn will feel out of place at throughout her childhood, despite being her parent. It’s a chaotic whirl of Tomlinsons and Louis’ more raucous friends, hardly any of his own family could make it because of a school event Safaa’s got, and his daughter is so monopolized by visitors who rarely see her that he often finds himself just standing off in a corner, checking his phone.

He likes his alone time with her, when they get the solitude they both seem to crave, and he can read to her and take her to museums and watch her toddle around, wide-eyed, discovering new things. Birthday parties are not exactly his domain.

To his relief, Louis seems equally unhappy. Everyone wants to chat him up, ask him how things are going, interrogate him about Mia’s progress, dig for news about Liam’s solo endeavors and his own work plans. He’s gracious and polite, but Zayn can see the strain behind his smile. There's no twinkle in his eye like there usually is. He keeps Mia in his arms a lot, or on his hip, like he’s afraid she’ll get lost in the shuffle. Or, more likely, he feels alone in the crowd and is clinging to her as a life raft.

Liam, of course, is having the time of his life. Zayn keeps thinking uncharitably that someone should tell him it isn’t _his_ birthday.

Zayn can relate more to Louis now than he ever could before. Since the baby, the hiatus, and having his name completely dragged through the mud for a year and a half, Louis has grown more closed-off and self-protective. He’s always been somewhat prickly, deep down, and hid that behind his cheery manner and a veneer of sarcasm, but now it isn't as easy to hide. There’s a sharper edge to it.

Zayn sees himself in that edge. He wishes they could talk about this, but they’ve just lately become consistently civil, and valiantly repressing his lingering feelings for Louis makes being around him (when he is so often being hovered over by needy Liam) an exercise in maturity.

It isn’t an exercise he thinks he’s doing very well at, but it’s exhausting to even try. He’s just gone through another breakup. This one wasn’t as tough as Gigi, they didn’t date as long, but Zayn is beginning to feel like he’s grabbing at branches while falling and one by one, they’re snapping in his hands.

Later on in the afternoon, Louis passes their daughter off to his sister and comes over to him. Zayn is halfway into a third glass of wine at this point, standing near the stairs and playing a game where he counts how many people in the house actively dislike him. Calvin, for one, keeps shoulder-checking him every time he passes him.

Louis sidles up next to him, fiddling with his fringe and then folding his arms over his chest.

“There’s way too many fuckin’ people here,” he mutters.

Zayn laughs and nods.

In the sitting room across the hall, Lottie is screwing with the music; a Migos song comes on, and she adopts a flustered look.

“You’re in the wrong playlist, love,” Louis calls to her. This gets a few scattered laughs. Most everyone is gathered in the sitting room; they’re two of the odd men out over here by themselves. Zayn can see Liam, who he can tell is trying very hard not to glance over at them. He’s talking to Jay, who seems amused by whatever he’s saying.

“I can’t believe she’s one,” Louis says, sounding morose. “I can’t believe I’m twenty-five… I dunno where the time is going.”

“Me either,” Zayn murmurs. He looks over at Mia in Lottie’s arms, at her bright eyes and chubby cheeks. She's gone, in just one short year, from being the fragile alien creature that is a newborn to being a sturdy and lively miniature approximation of an adult person. He feels like she sometimes grows in between their weekends together, these days.

Louis draws closer to him. Zayn hesitates, then slips an arm over his shoulders.

“It scares me,” Louis confesses. “I don't want her to grow up… I'm scared of what happens when she's not my little buddy anymore.”

“Everybody grows up,” Zayn whispers, slurring his words a little. “We scared the hell out of our mums, didn't we? But we came back, right? If you're good to them, they'll always come back…”

“Unless they're an arsehole…”

“Oh, Yas won't be,” Zayn assures him, although he has plenty of anxiety about this himself -- the unpredictability of human behavior, the chance that Mia will self-medicate future angst with drugs and alcohol just like her parents.

Louis sighs and leans his head against Zayn's shoulder. Zayn likes the warm weight of him. The sick part of him that's been growing stronger lately is hoping that Liam is watching this.

“I'm sorry, this is so stupid of me,” Louis says. “It's her birthday, it ought to be fun…”

“Things like these aren't usually fun for the parents, I don't think.”

Louis laughs. “I'm realizin’ that, now.”

He takes Zayn's wine and finishes it off, then sets the glass on the end of the banister they're leaning on.

“So… one of my writers says ‘e heard Liam's thinking about proposin’,” Zayn says, studying Louis for his reaction.

Louis shakes his head. “We've talked about it,” he says. “We've been waiting. Or… I've been waiting. It's sort of down to me to say when. I'll be the one to propose to him, probably.”

Zayn's heart seizes with disappointment. He isn't sure what he expected. Didn't his dad tell him that once, to not ask a question you don't want the answer to?

He doesn't allow himself to have any hope about the fact that Louis has waited. He doesn't even know what he wants, really. Does he want Louis? He looks at him, really looks at him. He looks good, undeniably. He's slimmed himself down almost completely since the baby, but he's put back on enough muscle that he's still curvy in the right places. The sadness on his pretty face draws Zayn to him even more.

“Waiting on what?” he says.

Louis shifts his weight. “Dunno… the right moment?”

They both look to Liam at the same time. Lottie has handed Mia to him so she can use both hands to search through Spotify. He's playing one-handed peekaboo with her, and grinning widely.

Zayn misses him and hates him, all at once.

A familiar song comes on. Zayn can't place it, for a moment, and then recognizes that wailing oboe. It always yanks at his heartstrings in the same way, each time he hears it.

“Sorry,” Lottie calls. “Too depressing, I thought the Carpenters were upbeat.”

“Put Migos back on,” one of Louis’ friends hollers. “Wait, oi, put the Frank album on!”

“That's even more depressing,” Lottie exclaims.

Zayn clears his throat, and Louis glances at him.

“What's up?”

“Nothing,” Zayn mutters. “Just, that song, like.”

Louis watches him, waiting.

“When you were pregnant…”

Someone walks by, and Zayn lowers his voice and looks into Louis’ eyes. There's a woeful curiosity in them that socks the air from Zayn's lungs.

“And when you were still on the tour… I used to listen to this, and think -- I dunno, it reminded me of you… just ‘cos you wouldn't come home, like…”

He blinks hard and looks away. His face is flushed from the wine.

“Zayn,” Louis breathes, sounding emotional.

“Louis!” Fizzy shouts, beckoning him over. “Your HDMI cable isn't working.”

Louis’ gaze is dragged from his face, and he reluctantly turns back to the party.

“You've got to jiggle it,” he calls.

“Well, can you come jiggle it?”

Louis shakes his head and lets out a soft laugh. “I'll be back,” he says to Zayn.

“Fine,” Zayn says. He knows he won't be. He watches him walk away, gives it a moment, and then returns to the party himself.

He goes to his daughter, who has climbed up on the couch amidst the chaos and is quietly playing with a doll, attempting to pull its head off with a sort of impassive curiosity, like she's just wondering if she can. He scoops her up into his lap.

“Lots of commotion,” Zayn murmurs to her. “You don't even know what a birthday is, do you, Yasmeen?”

Mia babbles happily at him. “Dadda,” she says, reaching up and digging her fingers into his shirt pocket. He sometimes keeps candy in there for her, but today all that's in there is a lighter. He kisses her on the head apologetically.

Across the room, Louis is bent over the television, arguing amiably with Liam about which way the cable goes in. Liam's hand rests casually on the small of his back, and when Louis straightens back up, he retreats automatically to Liam's arms. Liam idly nuzzles him. Louis turns his head and looks into his eyes, saying something inaudible that makes Liam grin and whisper in his ear. Louis' face is sunny, the gloom that was on it having momentarily parted.

Zayn glances down at their daughter, who meets his eyes, guileless and innocent. He smiles at her, and she beams back.


End file.
